■'^.^ 


LIBRARY 

PRINCETON^  N.  J.        _-, 

BV  640  .W'^isTS  c.l 
Taylor,  Isaac,  1787-1865 
Spiritual  despotism 


The  Joliii  I>I.  Krebs  Donation. 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 


Br  THE  AUTHOn  OF 


NATURAL   HISTORY  OF   ENTHUSIASM. 


»/  'i^Hk^^is.-  ^^/i^-^l^i 


HoKvs  ouv  xoLVTavdoL  6  xiv<5uvo^,  xai  drsvri  xal  «rsdX<,ajtA^»3 


NEW-YORK: 

LEAVITT,  LORD  &  Co.,  180  BROADWAY. 

BOSTON : 
CROCKER  &  BREWSTER,  47  WASHINGTON-STREET. 


M  DCCC  XXXV. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  Author  has  seen  reason,  the  grounds  of  which 
it  is  not  important  to  state,  for  altering  the  order  of 
the  volumes  he  has  announced ;  and  in  the  stead  of 
Superstition,  offers  to  the  reader  Spiritual 
Despotism. 


CONTENTS, 


SECTION  I.  FAGR. 

The  Present  Crisis  of  Church  Power 5 

SECTION  II. 
General  Conditions  of  Hierarchical  Power , 27 

SECTION  III. 

Sketch  of  Ancient  Hierarchies,  and  that  of  the  Jews 64 

SECTION  IV. 
Rudiments  of  Church  Polity 92 

SECTION  V. 
First  Steps  of  Spiritual  Despotism 144 

SECTION  VI. 
Era  of  the  Balance  of  the  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical  Powers.. .....     185 

SECTION  VII. 
The  Church  Ascendant 222 

SECTION  VIII. 

Spiritual  Despotism  supplanted  by  Secular  Tyranny 262 

SECTION  IX. 

Present  Disparagements  of  the  Ministers  of  Religion 279 

SECTION  X. 

General  Inferences. 304 


Notes  and  Illustrations 319 


SPIRITUAL,  D£SPOTI8I?I 


SECTION  L 

THE  PRESENT  CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER. 

The  alliance  between  Church  and  State  is  loudJj? 
denounced  as  the  source  and  means  of  spiritual  des- 
potism. But  history  shows  that  sacerdotal  tyranny 
may  reach  its  height  while  the  Church  is  struggling- 
against  a  hostile  civil  power.  No  practical  inference 
therefore,  professing  to  be  drawn  from  the  testimony 
of  facts,  can  be  valid,  unless  what  has  been  incidental 
to  hierarchical  usurpation  is  clearly  distinguished 
from  what  was  its  essential  principle.  Otherwise,  we 
may  unwittingly  promote  the  very  abuses  we  wish  to 
exclude  ;  and  may  be  led  moreover  to  spurn  the  most 
important  of  all  the  axioms  that  should  give  law  to 
the  social  system. 

Again  ;  the  maintenance  of  the  clergy  through 
the  medium  of  a  legal  provision  has,  with  as  little 
regard  to  the  genuine  lessons  of  experience,  been  as- 
signed as  a  chief  cause  of  the  corruption  of  Christi- 
anity. No  allegation  can  stand  more  fully  contra- 
dicted by  the  records  of  antiquity  than  does  this  ;  nor 
can  any  thing  be  more  easy  than  to  disprove  the  as- 
sertion. 

1 


6  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

Once  more :  the  arrogant  and  encroaching  epis- 
copacy of  the  early  ages,  from  which  the  proper 
counterpoise  had  been  removed,  has  furnished  a  spe- 
cious argument  in  modern  times,  bearing  against  that 
form  of  church  government  which  is  strongly  in- 
ferred to  have  been  sanctioned  by  apostolic  practice, 
which  is  approved  by  the  common  sense  of  mankind 
in  parallel  instances  ;  and  a  form  too  which  the  spread 
of  Christianity  at  once  demands,  and  insensibly  in- 
troduces. A  main  intention  then  of  the  present 
volume  is  to  point  out  to  the  candid  reader  the  un- 
soundness of  certain  popular  opinions  on  the  above- 
named  important  subjects  ;  and  to  show  the  futility 
of  the  arguments  that  have  had  any  such  assump- 
tions as  their  basis. 

While  thus,  at  the  thresliold  of  his  argument,  the 
author  explicitly  declares  his  purpose  and  opinion — 
an  opinion  he  hopes  to  substantiate  by  proper  evi- 
dence, he  must -not  be  misunderstood  as  wishing  to 
dogmatise  where  the  wisest,  the  best,  and  the  most 
accomplished  men  have  ranged  themselves  on  oppo- 
site sides.  Not  a  little  oppressed  by  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  must  advance  what  none  of  our  religious 
parties  will  altogether  approve,  and  what  some  of 
them  will  vehemently  distaste,  he  throws  himself  upon 
he  candour  and  generous  sympathy  of  all,  in  every 
communion,  whose  concern  for  Christianity  is  serious 
and  sincere.  Disclaiming  (as  he  has  endeavoured  to 
repress)  every  feeling  unbecoming  the  holy  gospel 
which  he  most  earnestly  desires  to  promote,  he  will 
not  believe  that  any  who  entertain  the  same  para- 
mount desire,  will  account  him  an  enemy,  even 
though  he  may  assail  their  fondest  and  their  firmest 
convictions. 

This  indeed  should  be  confessed,  that,  to  what- 
ever general  principle  of  church  polity  we  turn,  pro- 
bable dangers  present  themselves,  and  serious  diffi- 
culties attend  our  course  in  giving  them  effect.     The 


CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  7 

candid  and  the  well-informed  will  be  always  ready  to 
acknowledge,  what  they  must  so  often  painfully  feel 
— the  many  peculiar  embarrassments  that  attach  to 
every  scheme  of  religious  association.  Moderation 
should  spring  from  this  feeling  ;  nor  moderation 
alone,  but  a  manly  resolution  also,  and  unwearied 
diligence  in  collecting  information  from  all  sides,  and 
in  maturing  opinions,  such  as  may  safely  guide  us  in 
the  arduous  course  upon  which  it  is  now  inevitable 
that  we  should  enter. 

The  religious  interests  of  the  British  empire  are 
very  unlikely  much  longer  to  repose  where  hitherto 
they  have  rested  :  the  powers  of  change  that  are 
awake  must  be  met  and  directed.  Nor  is  it  possible 
that  a  greater  stake  should  be  at  hazard  among  any 
people;  for  the  welfare  of  Britain,  momentous  as  we 
must  think  it,  is  not  all  that  is  in  question,  since,  with 
the  religious  and  civil  well-being  of  our  own  country 
the  moral  and  spiritual  renovation  of  all  countries  is 
involved.  No  national  vanity  is  imphed  in  saying 
so;  for  none  can  look  at  the  course  of  events  during 
the  last  forty  years,  or  anticipate  those  almost  certain 
movements  of  the  moral  world  which  await  us,  with- 
out confessing  that  the  brightest  and  the  fondest 
hopes  we  entertain  on  behalf  of  mankind  at  large, 
hang  upon  the  auspicious  or  the  ominous  aspect  of 
English  Christianity. 

In  truth  it  has  been  the  fate — we  should  rather  say 
the  glory,  of  the  British  people,  in  the  course  of  their 
history,  to  have  furnished  practical  solutions  of  the 
chief  questions  of  political  science,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  civilized  community.  Nor  have  these  problems 
been  worked  at  small  cost.  Let  it  be  granted  that, 
as  the  forerunners  of  civilization  in  foreign  adven- 
ture and  conquest,  or  as  discoverers  on  the  peaceful 
paths  of  philosophy,  or  as  masters  of  mechanic  im- 
provement and  trade,  the  British  laurels  have  been 
won  with  immense  and  immediate  advantage  to  our- 


8  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

selves.  But  in  teaching  our  neighbours  the  princi- 
ples of  civil  and  religious  liberty  we  have  at  once 
purchased  our  honours  dearly,  and  reaped  the  fruits, 
if  not  sparingly,  yet  incompletely ;  or  as  if  wiih  a 
secret  repugnance. 

Nothing  seems  more  probable  than  that  now,  once 
again,  England — the  arena  of  Europe  and  theatre 
of  tlie  world,  should  attract  all  eyes  while  she  brings 
about  an  amended  adjustment  of  her  religious  polity. 
Hitherto  no  country  of  the  old  continent,  or  of  the 
new,  has  placed  its  church  establishments  on  a  foun- 
dation we  can  approve  ;  nor  are  we  by  any  means 
agreed  in  approving  our  own.  We  are  called  upon 
therefore  to  exert  afresh  our  ancient  prerogative  ; 
and  to  furnish,  for  the  imitation  of  mankind,  the 
model  of  a  national  Christian  constitution. 

The  rights  of  conscience  and  the  freedom  of  wor- 
ship have  already  been  fully  established  :  none  now 
openly  call  in  question  those  first  truths  (last  learned) 
which  are  the  spring  and  reason  of  national  pros- 
perity, and  the  warranty  of  the  many  blessings  they 
introduce.  Yet,  and  it  is  a  singular  fact,  the  disco- 
verers and  the  masters  of  axioms  so  clear  and  so  im- 
portant have  been  more  tardy  than  some  of  their  dis- 
ciples in  bringing  them  to  bear  upon  their  institu- 
tions. While  other  countries,  inferior  to  ourselves, 
if  not  in  general  civilization,  at  least  in  religious 
feeling,  have  promptly  availed  themselves  of  the  light 
which  England  has  shed,  England  herself  has  slowly 
recognised  her  own  truths.  Thus  (as  some  astrono- 
mers suppose)  the  sun,  while  pouring  from  its  upper 
atmosphere  the  radiance  that  enlivens  the  universe, 
itself  remains  shrouded  in  a  sombre  twilight. 

What  did  any  European  people  know  of  the  prin- 
ciple or  practice  of  religious  liberty  until  they  had 
learned  the  first,  and  seen  something  of  the  second, 
in  England  ?  And  yet  our  admirers,  or  some  of 
them,  have  outstripped   us,  both  in   the   public  ac- 


CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  9 

knowledgment,  and  in  the  application  of  the  doc- 
trine. Until  very  lately,  even  if  it  be  not  still  so, 
our  profession  of  this  not-controverted  truth,  has  been 
made,  by  one  party  with  an  ominous  reservation  ;  and 
by  another  has  been  so  interpreted  as  to  generate 
endless  divisions.  Hence  it  happens  that  our  insti- 
tutions and  our  practices  remain  full  of  anomalies, 
which  either  belie  or  dishonour  our  principles.  In 
like  manner  often,  the  field  of  a  battle  which,  in  its 
issue,  has  restored  peace  and  wealth  to  an  empire, 
itself  long  exhibits  the  desolations  of  the  terrible  en- 
counter ;  and  is  the  last  spot  to  be  covered  anew 
with  the  harvests  that  were  wen  there  for  other 
lands. 

But  it  is  far  from  being  enough  that  we  under- 
stand and  enjoy,  did  we  even  enjoy  it  in  the  com- 
pletes! manner,  religious  liberty  :  this  were  but  a 
negative  benefit.  To  be  exempt  from  sacerdotal 
usurpations  is  indeed  an  inestimable  blessing;  and  to 
be  free  from  the  terror  of  ecclesiastical  tribunals  is  a 
deliverance  worth  whatever  it  may  cost.  Yet  it  will 
satisfy  those  only  who  would  not  care  if  left  to  forget 
religion  altogether.  Such  is  far  from  being  the  mind 
of  the  English  people  at  large.  It  has  not  now  be- 
come, any  more  than  it  has  ever  been,  the  character- 
istic of  the  British  nation,  either  to  rest  in  a  profli- 
gate indifferency  toward  religion,  or  with  a  servile 
obsequiousness  to  bow  to  the  childish  pomps  of  a 
despised  superstition.  The  mass  of  the  people,  and 
especially  of  the  middle  classes,  are  serious  in  their 
belief  (whether  right  or  wrong  in  particular  opinions) 
sincere  in  their  professions,  and  disposed  to  pay  a 
manly  and  religious  respect  to  whatever  in  matters 
of  religion  may  seem  to  deserve  it.  Quite  unlike 
some  of  our  neighbours,  we  shall  not  be  found 
boasting  of  atheism  in  one  hour,  and  bowing  to  idols 
in  the  next.  The  English  ask  for  a  religion,  and  it 
must  be  a  religion  they  can  honestly  cherish  :  or  to 

1* 


10  ^       SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

say  all  that  need  he  said,  in  a  word — Christianity  is 
our  choice,  and  the  Bible  our  rule. 

This  Christianity  by  the  Divine  favour  we  actu- 
ally possess ;  and  this  Bible  we  read  and  reverence  ; 
and  if  our  national  religion  be  looked  at  only  in  a 
broad  and  indefinite  manner,  nothing  seems  wanting 
except  a  continued  and  increased  diligence,  on  all 
hands,  in  diffusing  and  enforcing  the  heavenl}^ 
benefit.  But  if  the  external  profession  of  Christianity 
be  regarded  under  the  actual  conditions  that  attach 
to  it ;  or  if  our  national  religion  be  thought  of  as  a 
bond  of  peace,  and  a  prop  of  social  order,  it  is  found 
to  have  become  the  subject  of  very  serious,  and,  as  it 
seems,  irreconcilable  misunderstandings,  such  as  at 
once  paralyse  its  spiritual  energies,  pervert  its  moral 
influence,  forbid  its  universal  difiusion,  enhearten  its 
adversaries,  and  throw  a  portentous  shade  over  all 
our  institutions,  civil  as, well  as  ecclesiastical.  The 
divisions — now  much  exasperated,  that  exist  among 
us  on  questions  belonging  to  the  exterior  forms  and 
the  profession  of  religion,  are  of  a  kind  that  affect 
the  Christian  with  inexpressible  grief,  the  patriot 
widi  shame  and  dismay,  and  the  statesman  with 
hopeless  perplexity. 

The  usual  prelude  of  open  hostility  has  actually 
been  gone  through  with  ;  namely,  an  exact  num- 
bering and  comparing  of  forces  among  the  combat- 
ants. The  muster-rolls  of  party  strength  have  been 
made  up  and  read  aloud  ; — dismal  sound  in  the  ears 
of  the  sons  of  peace  !  Instead  of  its  being  inquired, 
as  it  should  among  a  Christian  people.  What  are  the 
means  at  our  command  for  making  an  assault  upon 
the  irreligion  of  the  world,  upon  its  infidelity,  and  its 
polytheism,  the  cry  is.  Are  we,  of  this  party,  strong 
enough  to  overthrow  our  brethren  of  that  ?  Chris- 
tianity has  in  no  age  of  her  history  offered  a  spec- 
tacle more  humiliating  to  her  friends  than  the  one 
she  now  presents  within   her  home,  the  British  em- 


CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  11 

pire.  If  the  Gospel  was  disgraced  by  the  supersti- 
tions of  tlie  tenth  century,  those  errors  and  follies 
were  palliated  by  the  general  ignorance  of  the  times; 
but  the  guilt  and  absurdity  of  the  factions  of  the  pre- 
sent day  are  enhanced  to  a  high  pitch  by  the  intelli- 
gence that  surrounds  us.  The  light,  the  liberty, 
the  energy,  that  mark  the  current  era,  instead  of 
being  interpretable,  as  they  should,  in  an  auspicious 
sense,  have  of  late  become  only  so  many  omens  of 
ill  ;  inasmuch  as  they  immensely  aggravate  the  cri- 
minality of  our  discords. 

Shall  we  never  learn  to  contemplate  the  religious 
divisions  of  the  country  with  that  grasp  of  under- 
standing and  breadth  of  feeling  that  become  vigor- 
ous and  vi^ell-ordered  minds  ?  Both  sides,  in  the 
great  controversy  of  the  day,  exult  where  they  should 
lament,  and  deplore  what  they  should  rejoice  in  ; 
blame  others  for  their  own  faults,  and  commend  them- 
selves where  the  praise,  if  any,  belongs  to  tlieir  op- 
ponents. Instead  of  inveighing,  with  imbecile  petu- 
lance, against  dissent,  and  instead  of  denouncing  the 
'  schismatics'  as  contemners  of  heaven,  the  Church- 
man would  do  better  modestly  to  consider  that  dis- 
sent, widely  as  it  has  spread,  affords  a  strong  pre- 
sumptive evidence  of  the  existence  of  some  capital 
flaws,  or  at  least  errors  of  management  on  the  part 
of  the  Establishment.  The  alleged  reasons  of  dis- 
sent the  Churchman  may  think  insufficient ;  but  the 
actual  causes  of  dissent  assuredly  involve  a  heavy 
blame,  which  must  fall,  eitiier  upon  the  original  con- 
stitution, or  upon  the  administration  of  the  Church  ; 
and  probably  upon  both.  The  Churchman,  there- 
fore, if  wise,  would,  without  losing  a  day  of  irreco- 
verable time,  inquire  concerning  these  faults,  and 
apply  the  painful  necessary  remedy. 

Again,  if  the  Churchman  possess  the  feelings  of  a 
Cliristian  and  a  patriot,  instead  of  glancing  at  the 
barn-roofed  chapel   and  meeting-house  with  an  evil 


12  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

eye  and  a  grudge,  he  should  loudly  and  ingenuously 
rejoice  that  the  saving  elements  of  truth  are  scattered 
so  widely  ;  and  that  the  insufficiency  of  his  Church 
are  in  some  good  degree  supplied.  What  but  a  tho- 
rough illiberality  of  spirit  can  prevent  a  Christian 
man,  on  a  Sunday  morning,  from  exulting  in  the 
thought  that,  instead  of  ten  thousand  Christian  con- 
gregations then  assembling  in  the  land,  there  are 
fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  ?  Some  men  surely  have 
much  to  learn,  and  to  unlearn,  before  they  are  quali- 
fied to  join  either  in  the  chorus  of  philanthropy  on 
earth,  or  in  the  anthem  of  worship  in  heaven. 

On  the  other  side  the  Dissenter,  too  often,  is  not 
less  wrong  in  feeling  and  inference.  Instead  of  re- 
torting the  accusation  of  schism  upon  the  schismatic 
conditions  imposed  by  the  Church,  he  should  cover 
himself  with  sackcloth  when  he  recollects  that  dis- 
sent, within  itself,  is  divided  by  a  dozen  frivolous  dis- 
agreements, and  that  separation  upon  separation  still 
fails  to  satisfy  that  self-willed  spirit  which  dissent  has 
cherished.  If  dissent  were  ONE,  the  charge  brought 
against  the  Church  would  come  with  irresistible  force. 
But  it  is  not ;  and  there  is  reason  with  those  who 
say,  "  Although  we  were  to  remove  the  grounds  of 
nonconformity,  we  should  do  nothing  that  would  in- 
sure unitv,  or  relieve  Christianity  from  its  oppro- 
brium. Though  there  were  no  Dissenters,  there 
would  yet  be,  as  in  America,  scores  of  sects." 

Furthermore,  the  Dissenter,  were  he  accustomed  to 
entertain  comprehensive  views  of  the  national  wel- 
fare, and  did  he  but  cherish  that  modesty  which  the 
especial  difficulty  of  the  subject  should  suggest,  in- 
stead of  boasting  the  political  strength  of  his  party, 
and  of  indulging  factious  hopes,  founded  on  the  em- 
barrassments of  the  national  Church,  would  endeavour 
anxiously  to  avert  convulsions  whence  good  could 
arise  only  remotely,  and  at  a  tremendous  cost ;  and 
most  especially,  if  ingenuous,  and  diffident  (as  a  wise 


CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  13 

man  always  is  of  theoretic  principles)  lie  would  ab- 
stain from  urging  the  popular  passions  toward  demo- 
lition ;  and  on  the  contrary,  would  lend  all  his  in- 
fluence to  those  proposed  reforms  in  the  Church 
which  must  be  fairly  and  consistently  tried  before  it 
can  be  known  whether  a  church  establishment  is,  in 
principle,  wrong  and  impracticable.  To  assail  the 
consolidated  institutions  of  the  land,  and  to  throw  a 
brand  into  a  vast  machinery,  which  we  might  find 
ourselves  unable  to  replace,  is  not  a  course  to  which 
the  dictates  of  common  sense,  or  of  political  wisdom, 
or  the  spirit  or  precepts  of  the  Gospel,  give  any 
sanction. 

These  reciprocal  faults,  which,  be  it  remembered, 
attach  much  more  to  the  leaders  and  organs  of  the 
several  parties  than  to  the  mass  of  the  people  on 
either  side,  take  effect  especially  upon  the  course  of 
the  controversy  as  carried  on  through  the  press.  The 
opponents,  neither  of  them  deficient  in  ability,  or  in 
a  fair  measure  of  sincere  intention,  and  perhaps 
genuine  piety,  yet,  with  some  exceptions,  want  the 
calmness  and  candour  that  considers  and  admits  the 
real  strength  of  the  adverse  argument,  and  which 
reckons  at  the  full  the  merits  of  an  antagonist.  (We 
say  not  here  how  lamentably  both  parties  fall  short 
of  that  enlightened  and  expansive  charity,  and  that 
brotherly  love  which  should  recommend  the  Chris- 
tian profession.)  But  in  this  controversy,  as  in  so 
many  others,  yet  never  more  than  in  this,  the  oppo- 
nents do  not  meet  each  other  either  in  discussing  ab- 
stract principles,  or  in  proposing  practical  measures. 
When  the  former  are  brought  forward,  an  unfair  use 
is  immediately  made  of  the  actual  and  incidental 
faults  of  the  national  Establishment ;  and  when  the 
latter  are  to  be  considered,  every  specific  remedial 
proposition  is  discarded  by  bringing  up  some  sweep- 
ing speculative  doctrine,  or  some  untried  theory. 


14  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

As  for  example  :  the  abstract  question  of  the  pro- 
priety and  utility  of  ecclesiastical  establishments  is 
hardly  ever  left  to  its  simple  merits.  The  Church- 
man will  not  so  leave  it,  because  he  has  an  actual 
Church  to  uphold — and  this  Church  hotly  assailed. 
The  Dissenter  will  not,  because  he  dares  not  forego 
the  argumentative  advantage  he  derives  from  the 
abuses  or  imperfections  of  our  Establishment. 
Scarcely  knowing  how  he  might  maintain  his  oppo- 
sition if  deprived  of  the  sinister  aid  he  draws  from 
this  source,  abundant  as  he  finds  it,  and  well  suited 
as  it  is  to  irritate  popular  resentment,  he  either  blinks 
the  abstract  question  altogether,  or  mixes  up  with  it 
matters  that  are  extrinsic  and  accidental :  the  Dissen- 
ter clings  to  pluralities  as  tenaciously  almost  as  the 
pluralist  himself. 

Again,  the  Churchman,  doubting  whereto  the  as- 
sault of  the  Church,  if  yielded  to,  might  proceed,  and 
having  his  own  prejudices,  and  perhaps  interests,  and 
those  of  his  friends  and  patrons  to  care  for,  takes  his 
stand,  most  inopportunely,  upon  advanced  ground, 
which  is  already  sapped,  and  which  must  fall  in  with 
him.  The  Church,  with  too  many  who  make  them- 
selves her  champions,  means  the  Church  untouched. 
Thus  it  is  that  few,  if  any,  seriously  and  in  good  faith, 
inquire  what  our  national  Establishment,  with  its  high 
intrinsic  merits,  might  become  in  the  hands  of  able, 
honest,  and  cautious  reformers.  Or,  in  other  words, 
few  are  willing  to  put  the  abstract  question  of  a  na- 
tional establishment  to  the  test  of  experience,  by  giving 
or  restoring  every  possible  advantage  to  the  one  we 
possess*  This  momentous  problem  demands,  in  truth, 
to  be  referred  to  some,  if  they  could  be  found,  who 
should  be  far  more  ingenuous  and  temperate,  as  well 
as  enlightened,  than  are  any  Dissenters  ;  and  far  more 
free  and  disinterested  than  are  any  Churchmen.  Be- 
tween the  factious  vehemence  of  the  one,  and  of  the 


CRISIS   UF    CHURCH    POWER.  15 

timid  ephemeral  counsels,  or  the  miscalculating  pre- 
judices of  the  other,  the  high  welfare  of  the  empire  is 
not  unlikely  to  be  shipwrecked. 

The  danger  of  such  a  catastrophe  is  not  a  little  en- 
hanced by  the  active  interference  of  those  who  would 
not  deny  that  they  are  coldly  affected,  or  even  ill- 
affected  toward  Christianity  itself.  The  necessity  of 
applying  epithets  of  opprobrious  sound  to  any  set  of 
men  is  a  most  unpleasant  necessity;  yet  how  can  an 
argument  be  conducted  if  apt  designations  must  not 
be  employed  f  Renouncing  then  all  offensive  inten- 
tion, as  well  as  unkind  feeling,  it  must  be  said  that 
there  exists  among  us,  and  almost  in  the  consolidated 
form  of  a  distinct  faction,  what  may  fairly  be  called 
the  infidel  and  atheistic  party ; — a  party  powerful  by 
its  intelligence,  and  by  its  extensive  possession  of  the 
periodic  press  (not  to  say  its  political  influence.) 
Fine  distinctions  and  nice  shades  of  opinion  not 
regarded,  and  amid  the  urgent  affairs  of  life  they  can- 
not be  regarded,  those  must  needs  be  called  infidels 
who,  notwithstanding  a  ceremonious  bow  to  the  wor- 
ship of  the  land,  invariably  array  themselves  against 
every  mode  of  positive  religious  belief :  nor  again, 
can  we  scruple  to  call  those  atheists,  who  choose,  on 
every  occasion,  to  display  their  singular  ingenuity  in 
exhibiting  the  fallacy  of  whatever  evidence  is  advanced 
in  proof  of  the  being  and  perfections  of  God.  Wri- 
ters may  say,  "  far  be  it  from  us  to  deny  the  existence 
of  an  intelligent  first  cause;  nevertheless  this  argu- 
ment, and  this,  and  tliis^  usually  urged  by  theologians 
in  favour  of  the  popular  dogma,  is  manifestly  incon- 
clusive." A  manly  ingenuousness  would  assuredly 
exchange  so  thin  a  disguise  for  a  candid  avowal  of 
disbelief. 

Be  this  as  it  may  ;  the  atheistic  faction  very  natu- 
rally takes  part  against  the  established  Church  in  the 
present  season  of  her  peril.  Political  tendencies,  ir- 
religious instincts,  the  prospect  of  triumph  over  things 


16  SPIRITUAL    DEFOTISM. 

and  persons  held  sacred,  the  hope  of  seeing  Christi- 
anity, in  one  of  her  principal  forms,  levelled  with  the 
dust  and  exposed  to  shame  ;  indefinite  expectations  of 
booty,  and  a  belief  that,  notwithstanding  the  zeal  of 
the  sects,  religion  altogether  would  not  long  survive 
the  overthrow  of  a  learned  and  respectable  hierarchy 
interested  in  its  support ;  these,  and  other  kindred 
motives,  impel  many,  as  well  among  the  vulgar  as  the 
educated,  to  mix  in  a  controversy  foreign  to  their 
habits  of  thinking,  and  into  which  they  bring  no  pre- 
paration, either  of  knowledge  or  of  sentiment,  that 
might  lead  them  to  a  sound  conclusion. 

This  irreligious  interference  in  a  religious  contro- 
versy cannot  fail  to  be  in  itself  pernicious;  but  it  be- 
comes more  so  when  caught  at  and  encouraged  by 
some  who  should  know  better  how  and  where  to  choose 
allies.  The  aid  we  receive  in  argument,  at  any  time, 
from  persons  between  whom  and  ourselves  there  exists 
an  absolute  contrariety  of  first  principles,  may  well 
be  suspected,  even  if  it  ought  not  at  once  to  be  re- 
nounced. Undoubtedly  some  capital  sophism  forms 
the  bond  of  that  accidental  connexion  which  makes  us 
one  with  men  whom  we  must  think  in  every  sense 
wrong.  Let  the  infidel  and  the  Dissenter  join  hands 
in  upheaving  the  Church,  and  before  the  ruins  have 
settled  in  the  dust,  the  former  will  turn  upon  the  latter, 
as  then  his  sole  enem}',  and  his  easy  victim. 

Those  who,  in  this  instance,  have  fallen  into  the 
snare,  would  do  well  to  mark  the  not  obscure  wishes  of 
their  coadjutors.  These,  assuming  it  as  probable  that 
the  mass  of  mankind  must  always  ask  for  a  religion 
of  some  sort,  will  be  well  content  so  long  as  the  reli- 
gion of  the  populace  is  of  a  kind  which  themselves  can 
easily  hold  in  contempt.  They  are  not  forward  there- 
fore, as  once,  in  the  young  days  of  modern  scepti- 
cism, to  assail  the  fanaticism  and  sheer  extrava- 
gance of  certain  sects ;  and  moreover,  impelled  as 
it   seems  by  the   same   motives,  they    now    actually 


CRISIS    OF   CHURCH    POWER.  17 

spread  their  shield  over  the  enormities  and  follies  of 
Romanism;  and,  with  surprising  eagerness,  slept  in 
to  defend  the  good  old  superstition  against  any  new 
and  vigorous  assailant.  The  very  same  popery  that 
was  furiously  run  upon  by  the  sceptics  of  the  last  age, 
is  as  zealously  befriended  by  the  sceptics  of  this.  But, 
assured  as  they  are,  that  the  papacy  has  lost  its  tusks, 
and  will  never  again  command  the  sword  of  the  state, 
they  would  very  cheerfully  stand  by  and  see  the  pic- 
turesque pomps  they  may  have  admired  at  Brussels, 
Antwerp,  Madrid,  or  Rome,  restored  to  our  English 
Churches,  Cathedrals,  and  Squares. 

The  summer  season  of  philosophic  impiety  is  just 
at  that  time  when  some  degrading  and  gorgeous  su- 
perstition overawes  the  vulgar,  decorates  the  frivolous 
hypocrisy  of  the  opulent,  and  thickl3' shades  from  all 
eyes  the  serious  verieties  of  religion.  Such,  nearly, 
was  the  state  of  things  with  the  pagan  philosophers 
when  Christianity  broke  upon  the  world  ;  and  such 
was  it  with  the  French  Encyclopaedists.  Never  shall 
it  be  so  with  English  unbelievers  ;  yet  were  this  pos- 
sible, these,  more  discreet  than  their  predecessors, 
would  know  better  than  to  use  any  efforts  for  demo- 
lishing the  popular  folly  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  would 
give  it  the  aid  of  their  talents,  and  the  mock  homage 
of  their  external  reverence.  What  least  of  all  this 
party  would  promote  is  a  wise  Church  Reform,  which 
it  foresees  would  presently  turn  the  balance  of  public 
feeling  to  the  side  of  rational  piety;  and  so  would 
throw  into  contempt  that  scepticism  which  is  now  saved 
from  it  only  by  the  obloquies  that  attach  to  our  pro- 
fession of  Christianity.  It  is  a  common  occurrence 
for  perverse  intentions  to  bring  into  conjunction  the 
most  opposite  parties;  and  so  it  is  now  that,  in  decry- 
ing, or  in  denouncing,  or  in  silently  obstructing  the 
necessary  revision  of  our  church  polity,  the  enemies 
of  all  religion,  and  its  zealous  and  most  sincere 
friends,  the  Dissenters,  and  the  interested  favourers 
2 


18  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

of  corruption  within  the  church,  are  found  conspiring 
(though  not  in  conspiracy)  to  prevent  the  pubhc 
good  ;  each  having  his  private  reason  for  wishing  to 
aver  what  simple-minded  and  enlightened  men  most 
fervently  desire. 

We  have  just  said,  that  those  inauspicious  exaspe- 
rations which  at  present  obstruct  the  course  of  onr 
national  religious  improvement,  attach  far  more  to 
the  leaders  and  organs  of  parties  than  to  the  mass  of 
the  people.  A  distinction  like  this  is  to  be  observed 
on  most  occasions  of  public  excitement ;  but  in  the 
present  instance  a  due  recollection  of  it  is  of  peculiar 
importance,  inasmuch  as  the  press,  and  especially  the 
periodic  press,  has  become  almost  the  sole  medium  of 
part}'  warfare.  The  periodic  press  not  merely  governs 
public  sentiment,  but  it  is  from  this  that  the  actual 
complexion  of  public  sentiment  is  gathered,  though 
incorrectly. 

Nothing,  it  must  be  granted,  can  seem  more  impru- 
dent than  for  a  writer  to  call  in  question  those  who. 
under  our  present  literary  economy,  sit  as  the  masters 
of  his  destiny.  But  the  author  (not,  as  he  hopes,  in 
the  spirit  of  arrogance)  long  ago  fixed  it  in  his  pur- 
pose to  incur  all  hazards  while  discharging  what  he 
thinks  his  duty.  In  the  present  instance  he  must  not 
conceal  his  opinion  that  what  is  needed,  as  prelimi- 
nary to  wholesome  measures,  is  to  disengage  the  pub- 
lic mind  (if  it  might  be  done)  from  the  despotism  of  the 
Periodic  Press,  and  to  loosen  the  yoke  fastened  upon 
the  neck  of  the  people  by  our  Newspapers,  Maga- 
zines, and  Reviews. 

The  author  on  this  occasion  challenges  the  Pub- 
lic ;  and  he  looks  too  with  confidence  to  the  can- 
dour and  generous  feelings  of  not  a  few  of  those  to 
whom,  in  their  public  capacity,  what  he  has  to  say 
may  apply.  Many  there  are  connected  with  the  pe- 
riodic press  who   distaste   their  task,   who  disallow 


CRISIS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.  19 

much  in  which  they  are  implicated,  and  who,  in  the 
freedom  of  private  intercourse,  would  not  hesitate  to 
encourage  the  protest  which  the  autlior  is  here  bold 
enough  to  make.  He  appeals  then  to  readers  ;  and 
to  those  WRITERS  too  whose  employment  has  not 
spoiled  them  as  Christians  and  as  men. 

To  deny,  either  the  eminent  ability  with  which  the 
periodic  press  of  this  country  is  conducted,  or  the 
general  benefits  accruing  from  this  modern  system  of 
intellectual  circulation,  would  be  purely  splenetic. 
Our  daily,  weekly,  monthly,  and  quarterly  journals, 
diffuse  light  and  life  through  the  community  to  an  ex- 
tent that  has  no  parallel.  And  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, and  when  political  and  religious  interests 
are  running  on  in  their  wonted  channels,  and  at  an 
ordinary  pace,  even  the  factious  constitution  of  our 
journals  may  perhaps  have  its  convenience,  and  may 
give  rise  to  little  mischief.  But  it  is  far  otherwise 
on  those  signal  occasions  when  measures  become 
necessary  which  every  faction,  for  its  particular  rea- 
son, will  oppose,  and  which,  although  approvable  to 
the  quiet  good  sense  and  right  feeling  of  the  people, 
are  sure  to  be  denounced  and  misrepresented  by  those 
who  think  the  point  of  honour  of  higher  obligation 
than  the  duty  they  owe  to  abstract  truth ;  and  who, 
accordingly,  make  it  their  rule  to  look,  first  to  the 
interests  of  their  party,  which  it  would  be  discredita- 
ble to  betray,  and  last  to  the  welfare  of  the  country,  for 
which  they  are  but  remotely  responsible. 

Men  whose  spirits  are  hurried  and  tempers  irritated 
by  constant  engagement  with  antagonists,  and  who 
are  called  upon  to  take  a  part,  and  to  give  an  opi- 
nion, even  on  the  most  difficult  questions,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  Press  stands,  and  into  whose  habits  of 
thinking  nothing  that  is  cautious,  deliberative,  or 
modest,  may  enter,  how  should  such  lead  the  public 
mind  upon  new  ground,  and  where  every  sort  of  em- 
l>arrassment  thickens  around  us  ?     We  must  even  go 


20  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

further,  and  ask  whether  the  qualities  that  usually  eall 
men  into  the  service  of  our  periodic  literature  are,  a 
genuine  intelligence,  and  a  high  sense  of  duty  and 
principle  ;  or  rather  the  mere  faculty  of  ready  compo- 
sition, and  the  command  of  a  spirited  style,  together 
with  that  mental  vivacity  and  those  inflamed  intel- 
lectual passions  which  are  seldom  combined  with 
vigorous  good  sense,  or  with  expansive  views,  or 
with  substantial  acquirements;  and  never  with  hum- 
ble and  fervent  piety.  The  very  dispositions  we 
most  need  in  difficult  seasons,  are  those  that  ought 
not  in  fairness  to  be  looked  for  in  that  scene  of  flutter 
and  necessity — the  editor's  room.  Our  Reformation 
from  popery  was  not  concocted  or  carried  through  in 
any  such  temples  of  confusion.  Great  minds,  care- 
fully nurtured,  came  out  from  their  retirements  to 
meet  that  great  occasion.  The  press  did  indeed  aid 
the  Reformation  ;  but  the  press  was  not  then  as  now, 
in  a  condition  to  distract  it.  The  men  who  thought, 
spoke,  argued,  and  suffered,  did  not  spend  their 
days  and  nights  under  the  very  roofs  that  shake  with 
the  mighty  throes  of  the  printing  engine.  If  the 
same  Reformation  is  to  be  carried  forward  to  its 
consummation,  the  band  of  editors  and  contributors 
must  wheel  ofl*  from  the  ground,  and  give  room  to 
artisans  of  another  order. 

Hitherto  it  has  not  been  found  practicable  to  esta- 
blish a  journal  which  should  be  other  than  the  organ 
of  a  portion  of  the  communit3^  Ruled,  either  by 
immediate  considerations  of  profit,  or  looked  upon 
as  the  means  of  upholding  and  furthering  particular 
interests,  a  philosophic  impartiality  can  b}'  no  means 
find  place  in  works  of  this  class.  Whatever  is  great 
or  sincere,  must  pass  under  a  censorship  of  a  special 
sort,  and  be  questioned  in  its  remotest  bearings  upon 
every  prejudice.  Individually,  the  editor  and  his 
coadjutors  may  have  their  enlargement  of  mind,  or 
their  conscience  ;  but  the  door-way  into  their  office  is 


CRISIS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.  21 

narrow.  The  law  and  the  policy  of  the  journal  is 
to  assail  and  to  defend  given  interests ; — too  often 
Co  assail  and  to  defend  individuals. 

We  have  spoken  of  those  circumstances  which 
render  it  highly  unlikely  thai,  on  peculiar  and  diffi- 
cult occasions,  the  country  should  be  wisely  led  by 
our  journals.  But  there  is  another,  and  a  not  less 
important  aspect  of  the  subject. 

We  are  too  much  in  the  habit,  on  all  sides,  of 
forming  our  opinion  of  other  parties,  and  even  of 
our  own  party,  from  the  character  and  expressions  of 
the  several  journals  that  are  tlie  acknowledged 
organs  of  those  parlies.  But  this  method  of  judging 
of  our  brethren,  and  of  thinking  of  ourselves,  is  at 
once  illusory,  and  fraught  with  pernicious  conse- 
quences. In  doing  so  we  look  into  a  glass  that 
distorts  whatever  it  reflects.  Let  us  believe  it — let 
us  believe  it  as  well  of  our  neighbours  as  of  ourselves, 
that  we  are  much  better  men,  and  more  wise,  and 
calm,  and  more  christian-like,  than  the  newspaper  or 
review  that  lies  on  our  table  represents  us.  The 
violence  and  the  bigotry  which  we  read  and  sub- 
scribe to,  we  inwardly  loathe ;  and  what  other  men 
undertake  to  say  for  us,  we  should  abhor  to  say  for 
ourselves.  Feeling  this,  each  individually  as  we  do, 
we  are  bound  injustice  and  charity  to  impute  similar 
feelings  to  our  brethren  of  other  communions.  We 
are  all,  in  common,  not  only  misled,  but  misrepre- 
sented, if  not  slandered  by  the  forward  persons  who 
write  in  our  name.  The  commencement  of  every 
thing  that  is  happy  and  good  would  be  a  general 
and  vivid  consciousness,  on  the  part  of  the  people  at 
large,  of  the  wrong  done  them  by  the  journalists 
whom  they  patronise. 

The  aim  of  the  paper  or  the  review  (exceptions 
duly  allowed  for,  and  there  are  exceptions)  is  not  so 
much  to  speak  what  its  party  feels,  as  to  work  up  the 
2* 


22  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

sentiments  of  the  community  to  a  necessary  pitch,  to' 
give  those  sentiments  a  special  direction,  and  to 
throw  a  desirable  colour  of  public  spirit  over  factious 
proceedings./  There  is  then  always  a  measurable 
interval,  and  often  a  wide  one,  between  the  journal 
and  its  readers ;  and  nothing  can,  at  the  present 
moment,  be  much  more  important  than  that  this 
DlFFEPv-ENCE  should  be  understood,  and  calculated 
upon  in  our  projects  of  amendment. 

An  appeal  is  here  made  to  the  personal  conscious- 
ness of  every  Christian  reader,  and  to  his  particular 
acquaintance  with  the  religious  circle  in  tlie  midst  of 
which  he  moves,  while  this  broad  affirmation  is  ad- 
vanced— That  the  British  people,  and  especially  the 
religious  portion  of  it,  is  less  factious  and  perverse, 
is  more  docile,  and  more  ready  to  approve  of  reason- 
able conciliatory  measures,  than  it  appears  to  be 
when  judged  of  by  the  spirit  and  temper  of  our 
newspapers,  magazines,  and  reviews.  The  happy 
tranquil  intercourse  of  Christians  in  the  walks  of  pri- 
vate life  belies  the  intemperance  of  the  literary  leaders 
of  party.  Hence  it  will  follow  that  certain  schemes 
of  conciliation,  which  must  seem  utterly  chimerical, 
if  looked  at  in  ihe  light  reflected  from  their  flushed 
pages,  and  which  editors  and  reviewers  will  surely 
denounce  as  absurd,  may  deserve  to  be  seriously 
pondered  ;  and  especially  so  if  the  means  could  be 
found  of  bringing  them  to  bear  upon  the  public  mind 
apnrt  from  the  intervention  of  sectarian  writers.  No 
man  could  stand  in  a  nobler  or  more  auspicious  posi- 
tion than  one  who  should  be  able  to  hold  this  inter- 
ference at  ba}^,  and  to  work  directly  upon  the  better 
nature  of  the  christian  public. 

The  interval,  or  moral  diflerence,  between  readers 
and  writers  to  which  we  refer,  is  a  capital  circum- 
stance, very  necessary  to  be  understood  and  allowed 
for  in  reference  to  every  age  of  Christianity.  It  is  a 
circumstance  that  has   been  far  too  little  considered 


CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  23 

by  the  compilers  of  church  history ;  and  a  new  light 
might  be  shed  upon  several  eras  merely  by  pursuing 
those  incidental  intimations  through  which  the  actual 
state  of  the  community,  as  distinguished  from  the 
temper' of  the  authors  of  the  time,  may  be  discerned. 
At  some  moments,  no  doubt,  this  difference  has  been 
in  favour  of  the  writers  ;  but  more  often  in  favour  of 
the  people.  At  the  present  moment,  it  can  hardly 
be  assumed  as  probable,  that  the  intense  excitements, 
of  every  sort,  that  have  borne  upon  the  literary  body, 
have  operated  to  turn  the  scale  in  the  opposite 
direction. 

A  just  estimate  of  the  character  and  influence  of 
the  Periodic  Press,  considered  in  relation  to  those 
great  measures  which  the  religious  well-being  of  the 
empire  demands,  has,  then,  in  its  first  bearing,  a  dis- 
couraging aspect ;  inasmuch  as  this  influence  is  not 
easily  to  be  stemmed,  and  runs  vehemently  against 
whatever  is  not  sectarian.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  unquestionable  fact,  that  the  Press  does  not  truly 
represent  the  religious  community,  opens  an  unex- 
pected and  most  cheering  prospect  of  possible  im- 
provements in  our  ecclesiastical  condition,  when  once 
the  means  shall  be  found  of  coming  in  contact  with 
the  good  sense,  and  kindliness,  and  piety  of  the 
people. 

The  British  christian  commonwealth  is  not  to  be 
despaired  of.  Disabused  of  illusions,  and  disen- 
gaged from  factious  guidance,  our  country  would  be 
great  in  religion,  as  she  has  been  great  in  arts,  arms, 
and  civil  polity.  It  cannot  be  that  the  reason  of  so 
reasonable  a  people  should  forever  suffer  depression  ; 
or  that  their  sincere  and  fervent  Christianity  should 
for  ever  be  deformed  by  frivolous  and  acrimonious 
disagreements. 

The  present  crisis  of  ecclesiastical  principles  ought, 
it  is  true,  to  be  looked  at  by  religious  men  in  a  re- 


24  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

ligious  light ;  and  it  behooves  such  to  be  constantly 
on  their  guard  against  the  tendency  of  controversies 
such  as  these  to  sHde  off  to  the  lower  ground  of  po- 
litical interests.  The  best  means,  perhaps,  for  pre- 
serving in  our  own  minds  this  necessary  distinction, 
is  to  place  clearly  in  view  the  utmost  political  bear- 
ing of  the  Church  question,  that  so,  being  relieved 
at  once  from  undefined  terrors,  we  may  the  more 
steadily  give  attention  to  what  indeed  deserves  the 
highest  regard. 

The  crisis  of  the  Church  we  hold  then  to  be  the 
crisis  of  the  Constitution.  Renouncing  entirely,  and 
even  with  contempt,  those  alarms  which  are  made 
a  pretext  of  by  the  defenders  of  corruption^  who 
would  fain  have  us  believe  that  to  reform  a  single 
abuse  in  the  Church  is  the  same  thing  as  to  draw  out 
the  ties  and  pins  of  the  framework  of  the  State,  it  is 
yet,  as  we  assume,  not  to  be  denied  that  the  feeling 
and  the  principle  which  now  threaten  the  Church  of 
England,  threaten  also,  and  not  very  remotely,  those 
civil  institutions  that  stand  as  a  fence  against  pure 
democracy.  The  dissenting  clergy,  without  being 
theoretic  republicans  (the  contrary  is  to  a  great  ex- 
tent the  fact,  and  in  the  most  decisive  sense)  have 
gradually  yielded  to  a  doctrine,  however  much 
softened  in  practice,  that  involves  untempered  de- 
mocracy, and  have  recognised  a  sovereign  power  in 
the  people,  over  the  clerical  order,  unheard  of  till  of 
late,  and  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  necessary 
dignity  of  their  office,  and  the  free  and  efficient  dis- 
charge of  their  duties.  This  false  step  is  not  to  be 
retraced  ; — relinquished  power  is  not  to  be  reco- 
vered ;  the  tide  is  let  out,  and  rolls  on,  and  all  that  can 
be  done  by  the  (dissenting)  clergy  in  the  way  of  re- 
taining the  influence  that  remains  to  them,  is  to  ride 
on  the  ridge  of  the  wave,  and  to  be  loud  and  zealous 
in  favouring  popular  impulses,  and  to  lead  the  way 
onward  still,  where  to  stop  is  to  fall. 


CRISIS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  25 

In  this  very  manner  the  general  opinions,  political 
and  ecclesiastical,  of  the  dissenting  communities  have 
already  advanced  very  many  paces  during  the  last 
few  years.  The  great  and  accomplished  noncon- 
formists of  the  past  age  would  startle  at  the  princi- 
ples now  maintained  in  dissenting  publications.  The 
same  movement  must,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  go 
on."  We  have  not  yet  heard  the  whole  of  the  theory 
that  is  working  itself  into  the  light.  The  political 
tendency  of  the  times  favours  its  developement ;  the 
Dissenter  will  find  listeners  in  the  crowd,  and  co- 
adjutors in  the  senate,  and  will  himself  be  borne  on 
far  beyond  his  own  first  intentions.  To  affirm  that 
the  Dissenters  of  the  present  day  are  either  faint  in 
their  loyalty,  or  loosely  attached  to  the  existing  con- 
stitution, is  a  calumny,  and  can  never  be  believed  by 
any  who  are  personally  acquainted  with  their  pre- 
vailing sentiments.  Rejecting  this  slander,  which 
we  do  in  the  most  peremptory  manner;  we  yet  cal- 
culate the  elements  of  the  orbit  in  which  they  are 
moving  : — we  see  the  velocity,  we  feel  the  momentum, 
and  we  well  know  what  point  the  hyperbolic  course 
they  are  on  must  reach. 

On  a  subject  so  nice  as  this  no  man  will  readily  re- 
ceive his  opinion  from  another  ;  and  none  ought  to 
resent  the  opinion  entertained  by  another.  We  are 
not,  be  it  remembered,  imputing  designs,  or  sounding 
the  alarm  of  treason  and  conspiracy ;  but  are  indi- 
cating oqly  the  natural  tendency  of  principles  ;  and 
we  assume  it  as  no  extravagant  surmise  that,  what- 
ever hitherto  the  nations  of  Europe  have  admired, 
and  some  of  them  emulated  in  the  British  constitu- 
tion, will  instantly  sustain  the  unbroken  impetus  of 
popular  impatience  should  the  English  Church  be 
subverted.  If  indeed  pure  republicanism  be  the 
highest  political  good,  let  us  calmly  watch  the  pro- 
gress of  the  assault  upon  the  Church.  But  if  the 
British  Constitution  be  good,  and  if  we  desire 


26  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

to  uphold  and  to  perpetuate  that  form  of  llie  social 
S3^steni  which  used  to  be  thought  by  Britons  admi- 
rable, and  by  the  world  enviable,  then  must  we 
anxiously  inquire  whether  the  Church  of  England 
can,  and  will,  admit  that  renovation  of  her  powers 
which  may  enable  her  to  cope  with  the  tinies,  to  sur- 
vive the  agitation  of  the  moment,  and  to  continue,  as 
she  has  been,  the  guardian  of  our  national  welfare. 
First  then  for  the  sake  of  Christianity,  and  then 
for  the  sake  of  the  country,  we  should  desire  and 
promote  the  restoration  of  the  Church.  May  He  who 
in  so  many  signal  instances  has  put  honour  upon 
England,  and  has  sustained  her  amid  the  wreck  of 
nations,  and  has  rescued  her  peace  when  it  seemed 
gone,  and  has  kept  alive  within  her  the  cordial  pro- 
fession of  his  Gospel ;  may  He  now,  in  as  great  an 
emergency  as  has  yet  befallen  her,  send  the  spirit  of 
wisdom  and  power,  of  moderation  and  charity,  upon 
gome  who  shall  repair  her  desolations,  and  build  her 
up  for  ever  I 


CONDITIONS   OF    CHURCH    POWEIt.  27 


SECTION  II. 

GENERAL  CONDITIONS  OF  HIERARCHICAL  POWER. 

The  position  and  the  claims  of  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion, as  a  body  in  the  social  system,  are  not  easily 
to  be  determined.  Difficulties  that  may  be  ex- 
changed, sooner  than  avoided,  attend  every  scheme 
of  church  polity.  These  embarrassments  spring 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  interests  in  question ;  for 
until  truth  shall  attain  an  ascendency  in  the  world, 
religion,  as  to  its  exterior  forms,  must  stand  as  an 
anomaly  among  the  affairs  of  common  life  ;  and  the 
ministers  of  religion  inevitably  sustain,  in  one  manner 
or  in  another,  the  disadvantages  that  arise  from  this 
want  of  harmony  between  earth  and  heaven. 

Conscious  of  the  instability  of  their  position,  and 
feeling  as  if  their  dues  and  their  authority  might  at 
any  moment  be  brought  into  dispute,  the  clergy,  in 
almost  every  age,  have  been  tempted  to  set  themselves 
at  ease  by  means  alike  incompatible  with  their  proper 
influence  and  detrimental  to  the  general  welfare. 
Hence  have  resulted,  in  the  first  place,  Spiritual 
Despotism,  with  its  superstitions,  its  hypocrisies,  its 
fabrications,  its  follies  ;  and  then  those  vehement  re- 
actions, that  have  ended,  not  merely  in  humbling  the 
priesthood,  but  in  trampling  upon  religion.  The 
history  of  Christianity,  from  the  second  century 
onward  to  the  present  moment,  is  the  story  of  this 
growth  and  overthrow  of  church  power  ;  and  more- 
over, as  the  overthrow  yet  remains  to  be  consum- 
mated (for  the  papacy  still  lives)  so  does  the  reaction 
wait  to  be  brought  back  to  its  just  point.  Neither 
the  foundations  nor  the  limits  of  sacerdotal  authority 


23  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

have  hitherto  been  satisfactorily  ascertained  in  any 
Protestant  country  ;  and  in  England  first  principles 
on  this  subject  are  matters  of  controversy. 

If  the  ministers  of  religion  are  to  retain  power 
enough  to  enable  them  to  do  good,  they  must  be 
allowed  to  wield,  in  the  freest  manner,  and  without 
control,  an  indefinite  influence — an  influence  not  to 
be  circumscribed  by  statutes.  Any  attempt  to  de- 
scribe and  define  this  peculiar  species  of  power  in  the 
language  of  law,  is  not  so  much  to  curtail  it,  as  to 
deny  its  very  essence.  Again  ;  as  the  clergy  draw 
the  motives  of  their  calling  (or  should  do  so)  from 
reasons  that  are  not  commensurable  with  the  induce- 
ments of  worldly  conduct,  they  can  hardly  consent 
to  be  dealt  with  on  the  ground  of  secular  interests, 
without  some  compromise  of  honour  and  principle. 
At  this  point  it  has  been  found  very  hard  to  avoid  a 
jar  and  clash  of  heterogeneous  principles. 

Furthermore,  as  the  influence  of  the  clergy  touches 
the  public  mind  at  all  points,  and  affects  it  in  a  silent 
and  intimate  manner,  such  as  the  magistrate  can 
neither  follow  nor  countervail,  he  can  scarcely  avoid 
being  troubled  with  suspicions,  from  which  he  natu- 
rally seeks  relief  by  tampering  with  the  integrity  of 
the  rival  power,  and  by  corruptly  buying  its  favour. 
If  the  Church  sternly  rejects  these  adulterous  over- 
tures, and  maintains  her  high  independence,  she  will 
never  be  thought  of  by  the  State  much  otherwise 
than  as  an  eneni}'  in  the  bosom. 

It  is  in  vain  that  we  contend  for  the  absolute  non- 
relationship  of  ecclesiastical  corporations  to  the  civil 
power.  Even  if  the  Church  were  willing  to  maintain 
such  a  refined  doctrine,  the  State  has  not  eyes  nice 
enough  to  discern  it ;  and  will  always  reckon  the 
religious  bodies  it  has  to  do  with,  as  in  a  positive 
sense,  either  its  friends  or  its  foes  ;  and  will  feel  them 
to  be  either  its  masters,  or  its  subjects.  If  the 
Church,  in  relation  to  the  State,  be  co-ordinate  and 


CONDITIONS   OF   CHURCH   POWER.  29 

irresponsible,  a  counterpoise  exists,  fraught  with 
anxiety,  and  tending  always  to  change.  If  it  be 
subservient  and  obsequious,  whatever  renders  reli- 
gion efficacious  or  venerable  is  compromised.  If  it 
be  transcendent  and  supreme,  a  country  is  converted 
into  one  vast  dungeon  of  ghostly  cruelty,  of  which 
the  chief  magistrate  is  only  the  gaoler. 

Those  vvho  look  upon  the  evohitions  of  religious 
principles  solely  or  chiefly  in  a  secular  light,  natu- 
rally seek  to  evade  difficulties  of  this  sort  by  political 
management.  Some,  for  example,  would  endeavour 
in  all  possible  methods  to  lower  and  to  divert  the  re- 
ligious feeling  of  the  community.  By  putting  silent 
contempt  upon  the  customary  public  references  to  the 
supreme  Being  and  his  providential  government,  and 
by  freely  opening  to  the  mass  of  the  people  those 
sources  of  seductive  pleasure  which  withdraw  the  po- 
pular mind  from  seriousness  and  reflection,  they  would 
dry  up  the  springs  of  Church  power,  and  wither  at 
the  root  the  tree  of  piety.  Only  let  the  people,  high 
and  low,  be  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  sensual  gayetj^ 
and  let  the  public  mind  admit  no  other  stimulus  than 
what  is  drawn  from  physical  science,  and  from  com- 
mercial eagerness,  and  then  we  shall  effectually  set 
them  free  from  the  despotism  of  the  priest ;  and  stop 
too  the  course  of  religious  agitations.  Wiiat  can  be 
better  than  such  a  method — if  all  religion  be  an 
illusion  f 

Or  another,  and  a  less  odious  means  of  composing 
jarring  interests,  and  of  averting  religious  convul- 
sions, would  be  that  of  insidiously  forcing  or  tempting 
the  clerical  body,  of  all  communions,  into  a  condition 
of  absolute  dependence  upon  the  State,  and  then  to 
treat  it,  with  much  liberality  of  profession  and  much 
impartiality,  but  with  substantial  contempt,  as  the 
least  esteemed,  and  the  least  important  class  of  its 
stipendiaries.  Such  an  order  of  things  being  effected, 
the  public  purse  might  always  be  trusted  to  as  a  cer- 
3 


30  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

tain  means  of  purchasing  for  the  community  just  so 
mucli  religion  as  is  indispensable  for  binding  together 
the  social  system,  and  for  giving  contentment  to  the 
superstitious.  This  method,  like  the  first,  might  be 
eligible,  if  Christianity  could  be  proved  untrue. 

Tliere  yet  remains  a  scheme  that  may  recommend 
itself  to  the  politician  ;  and  it  is  that  of  suffering  the 
active  elements  of  religious  sentiment  to  work  as  they 
mav,  only  being  so  managed — now  fanned,  now 
checked,  now  let  loose  in  one  direction,  and  now  in 
another,  as  that  the  dangerous  force  of  the  mass  shall 
always  be  consumed  within  and  upon  itself.  Religious 
parties,  some  ambitious,  and  therefore  obsequious 
to  the  State;  some  simply  enthusiastic,  and  there- 
fore blind  and  variable;  some  fanatical  and  malig- 
nant, and  therefore  fit  for  imposing  fear  upon  others, 
might,  it  may  be  thought,  be  so  played  against  each 
other  by  skilful  hands,  as  to  maintain  a  general  equi- 
librium and  tranquillity.  Find  us  these  skilful  hands 
in  continuous  succession,  before  such  a  scheme  is 
talked  of  as  practicable. 

It  is  easy  to  say,  and  it  would  be  easy  to  prove, 
that  the  religion  of  the  Bible,  generally  diffused,  and 
siiicerely  and  fervently  professed,  would  at  once  ob- 
viate the  difficulties  we  have  mentioned^  as  well  as  any 
others  we  may  have  forgotten.  Under  the  most  faulty 
churcii  polity  iliat  has  ever  been  devised,  or  without 
any  polity,  every  thi>)g  would  go  on  safely  and  well, 
if  Christianity  took  full  effect  upon  most  men's  minds  ; 
and  if  it  continued  to  do  so  from  a<je  to  age.  Love  is 
llie  fulfilling  of  the  law ;  and  Christian  love,  in  its 
perfection,  would  supersede,  as  well  as  fulfil,  all  law. 
But  we  dare  not  leave  the  things  of  earth,  even  the 
best  things,  upon  this  ground.  Abandoned  to  the  ef- 
ficacy of  those  high  sentiments,  that  are  produced  only 
rarely,  religious  interests  either  evaporate,  or  give 
to  abuses,  worse  than  the  evils  of  too  much  legislation. 


CONDITIONS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.  31 

Civil  government,  in  all  its  provisions,  implies  the 
activity,  and  guards  against  the  excesses  of  malign 
and  selfish  passions.  Church  government  must  im- 
ply and  do  the  same. 

Two  opposite  errors  here  take  their  rise.  The  first 
is  that  of  those  who,  disdaining,  in  religious  matters, 
to  consider  mankind  such  as  they  are,  assume  vastly 
more  than  is  ever  realized  ;  and  rearinj^:  their  ecclesi- 
astical  edifice  upon  ideal  ground,  make  no  provision 
against  real  dangers  ;  and  therefore  leave  the  Church 
open  to  the  insidious  advance  of  the  worse  corruptions. 
The  second  error  is  that  of  secular  and  politic  minds  ; 
and  it  consists  in  allowing  too  little  scope  to  spiritual 
motives  in  spiritual  affairs  :  with  overcaution  estima- 
ting motives  of  the  lowest  probable  rate,  it  places  re- 
ligious offices  upon  what  it  deems  the  firm  ground  of 
ordinary  inducements.  Under  the  influence  of  this 
latter  error,  religion  invariably  dies  away  :  under  the 
former  it  scarcely  fails  to  become  extravagant  or 
corrupt. 

The  early  Church,  as  was  natural,  adopted  the 
lofty  hypothesis  which  assumes  that  every  thing  which 
is  sacred  is  really  pure,  and  will  always  continue  so  ; 
and  from  it  sprung,  very  soon,  the  system  that  ripened 
into  the  despotism  and  dishonesty  of  the  papacy. 
Our  modern  dissentients  from  establishments  place 
themselves  nearly  on  the  same  ground ;  but  their 
progression  in  the  same  course  is  obstructed  by  exte- 
rior causes.  The  opposite  fault,  and  it  is  a  most  serious 
one,  has  too  far  got  ground  in  every  one  of  those 
national  establishments  which,  at  the  Reformation, 
displaced  the  Romish  tyranny.  The  consequence, 
throughout  protestant  Europe,  has  been,  a  general  de- 
cay of  clerical  efficiency,  and  a  compromise  of  legiti- 
mate spiritual  power  for  worldly  advantages. 

At  the  present  moment  these  same  antagonist  prin- 
ciples are  in  a  state  of  doubtful  counterpoise  throughout 
Christendom.     Among  the   continental   nations  the 


32  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

old  superstition,  or  the  doctrine  of  the  immaculate 
spirituality  of  persons,  and  infallibility  of  authorities, 
and  immediate  supernatural  efficacy  of  offices,  involv- 
ing, as  it  does,  mighty  influences  over  the  human  mind, 
both  on  the  side  of  hope  and  fear,  and  being  in  a 
sense  purified  by  its  recent  losses  of  secular  power, 
combats  to  advantage  as  well  with  the  coldness  of 
Protestanism,  as  with  the  frivolity  of  the  prevailing 
atheism,  and  is  actually  drawing  to  itself  almost  every 
thing  that  is  genuine,  fervent,  and  vital,  around  it. 
Events  more  unlikely  have  come  about  than  would 
be  the  restoration  of  a  refined  (not  a  reformed)  Ro- 
manism, from  end  to  end  of  Europe. 

In  England,  the  two  principles  we  have  mentioned, 
stand  on  very  difierent  ground,  and  indeed  are 
strangely  intermixed  among  our  several  parties.  For 
example  ;  in  her  devotions  and  in  her  sacramental  and 
other  offices,  the  Established  Church  assumes  the 
highest  ground  of  spirituality  :  her  public  worship 
breathes  the  elevation  of  heaven,  and  speaks  a  sub- 
limity— simple  as  sublime,  which  makes  us  forget  the 
imperfections  of  earth.  Those  of  her  services  too 
that  have  incurred  the  most  blame,  are  to  be  defended 
only  on  this  ground,  that  the  Church  assumes  every 
thing  within  her  precincts  to  be  actually  holy  and 
valid.  The  Church,  in  these  instances,  disdains  to 
suppose  that  any  of  her  members  may  be  false  to  their 
profession.  But  on  the  other  hand  this  same  Church, 
in  her  polity  and  external  constitution,  has  embodied 
far  too  much  of  the  secular  principle ;  and  is  now 
greatly  endangered  through  the  rude  exposure  of  it 
by  her  enemies. 

The  two  incompatible  elements — the  hyper-spiritual 
and  the  secular,  or  simply  rational,  are,  with  a  like 
inconsistency,  commingled  in  the  notions  and  practi- 
ces of  most  of  the  dissident  sects.  These  parties,  in 
their  doctrine  concerning  the  derivation  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry,  and  still  more  so  in  the  practical  expo- 


CONDITIONS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.  33 

sition  which  ti)e  congregational  system  gives  of  that 
doctrine,  take  a  very  low  ground — a  ground  not  much 
raised  above  the  idea  of  a  teacher,  exercising  his  func- 
tion at  the  pleasure  of  tliose  who  maintain  him.  And 
yet  these  same  persons,  in  their  a;*gument  with  the  Es- 
tablished Church,  when  they  roundly  deny  the  lawful- 
ness of  a  national  religious  polity,  and  when  they 
plead  for  throwing  religious  interests  altogether  upon 
the  variable  impulses  of  the  people  from  year  to  year, 
seem  to  suppose  such  a  semi-miraculous  administra- 
tion of  the  world's  aifairs,  or  of  the  church's  affairs, 
as  excludes  or  supersedes  human  forethought,  and  the 
rationalemployment  of  ordinary  means.  In  the  view 
they  take  of  the  sacraments,  as  well  as  of  the  priest- 
hood, and  in  their  opinions  on  secondary  theological 
questions,  the  Dissenters  exhibit  a  decisive  leaning 
toward  what  is  most  simple  and  intelligible,  and  a  cor- 
responding backwardness  to  admit  any  thing  that  sa- 
vours of  mystery,*  or  which  may  not,  in  a  few  words, 
be  laid  open  to  popular  comprehension  :  a  shrewd  ra- 
tionalism is  the  taste,  if  not  the  avowed  principle  of 
theife  bodies,  in  all  but  the  higher  truths  of  revelation. 
Nevertheless,  in  what  relates  to  the  propagation  of 
the  Gospel,  or  to  its  maintenance  where  it  already  ex- 
ists, or  to  its  safe  transmission  to  the  next  age,  no 
class  of  Christians  have  gone  so  far  in  calculating 
upon  immediate  interpositions  of  heaven;  or  at  least 
have  been  so  jealous  of  those  prudential  arrangements 
which  secular  discretion  points  to,  as  proper  and  ne- 
cessary for  securing  these  public  interests. 

One  cannot  but  notice  the  fact,  that,  in  those  mat- 
ters which  human  reason  fails  to  grasp,  and  where  as 
well  the  means  as  the  end  are  veiled  in  some  obscu- 
rity— to  wit,  the  positive  institutions  of  Christianity, 

*  The  author  must  not  be  supposed  to  call  in  question  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  great  body  of  Dissenters  :  none  are  more  steadily  Trinitarian  than 
thev. 

3* 


34  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

the  parties  spoken  of  reject,  as  superstitious  and  ab- 
surd, whatever  is  not  instantly  intelligible.  But,  on 
the  contrary,  in  those  affairs  which,  in  their  nature, 
appertain  to  human  agency,  and  in  which  the  entire 
subject  lies  within  our  view — for  example,  the  mainte- 
nance of  public  religion,  in  these  they  discard  the  sug- 
gestions of  secular  wisdom,  and  prefer  to  rely  upon  a 
succession  of  supernatural  aids;  or  at  least,  act  as  if 
the  ordinary  course  of  human  affairs  did  not  hold  in 
the  history  of  the   Church. 

Those  who  are  accustomed  to  view  with  calm  and 
serious  impartiality  the  temper  and  principles  of  reli- 
gious communities,  will  not  deny  that  grave  inconsist- 
encies attach  to  all  sides  in  the  instances  above  allu- 
ded to;  inconsistencies  that  may  readily  be  traced  up 
to  the  events  of  a  past  age.  The  Reformers  wrouglit 
a  great  deliverance  for  us  ;  but  they  did  not  ascertain 
principles ;  and  since  their  time  the  Protestant  com- 
munions, having  stumbled  in  their  course  over  untrod- 
den ground,  have  wrangled  one  with  another  about 
the  v/ay,  to  little  purpose.  A  season  of  tranquillity 
(should  we  enjoy  one  after  the  existing  agitations  have 
subsided)  may  probably  be  employed  in  a  charitable 
and  rational  discussion  of  the  rudiments  of  church 
polity. 

The  path  toward  such  a  discussion  might  be  a  lit- 
tle cleared  by  considering  the  principal  extrinsic 
causes  that  have  affected  hierarchical  power,  either  as 
enhancing  or  repressing  it.  At  any  rate,  a  brief  re- 
view of  these  causes  belongs  to  our  present  subject. 

The  main  circumstances,  then,  that  appear  to  have 
strengthened  or  modified  the  influence  of  the  sacerdo- 
tal order,  are  the  following,  namely,  first.  The  qua- 
lity of  the  religion  whch  it  has  had  to  administer  : 
secondly.  The  intellectual  and  moral  character  of  the 
people  over  whom  this  influence  has  been  exerted  : 
thirdly,  The   position  of  the  hierarchy  in   relation  to 


CONDITIONS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.  35 

the  civil  authority  :  and  lastly,  though  not  of  least 
moment,  The  source  of  Church  revenues.  A  word 
or  two  for  each. 

I.  The  quality  of  the  religion  ;  and  when  this  is 
spoken  of  as  a  cause,  operating  upon  the  clergy,  we 
must  not  overlook  the  many  instances  in  which  the 
Priest  has  created  the  Religion,  and  has  made  it  to 
suit  his  purposes.  To  some  extent,  greater  or  less, 
this  backward  order  of  causation  has  taken  place 
almost  every  where; — oftener  than  we  may  have  sup- 
posed, we  shall  find  both  the  dogmas  and  the  usages 
of  religious  bodies  bearing  the  marks  of  the  priest's 
moulding  finger.  Nevertheless,  every  religion  has 
had  some  elements,  anterior  to,  and  independent  of 
sacerdotal  control ;  and  in  most  cases  the  clergy  have 
received  their  religion,  much  more  than  formed  it. 

It  is  an  obvious  fact  that  Fear  holds  the  first  place 
among  the  passions  excited  by  the  idea  of  Unseen 
Power.  Fear  has  at  once  a  more  extensive  opera- 
tion, and  a  stronger  power,  where  it  does  operate, 
than  any  other  religious  emotion.  Hence  it  will  be 
generally  true,  that  the  religion  which,  in  its  doc- 
trines and  usages,  is  the  most  superstitious,  will  be 
the  one  that  throws  the  greatest  authority  into  the 
hands  of  the  clergy.  Other  kinds  of  religious  ex- 
citement afiect  certain  tempers  only;  but  there  are 
very  few  minds  that,  while  a  dark  superstition  pre- 
vails around  them,  can  entirely  free  themselves  from 
its  terrors.  The  most  profane  and  the  most  sceptical, 
the  rudest  and  the  most  philosophic  spirits,  have  been 
seen  at  times  subdued  by  religious  fears,  and  so 
yielding  themselves  to  the  guidance  of  the  priest.  As 
well  the  mummeries  as  the  solemnities  of  an  elabo- 
rate superstition  subserve  the  purposes  of  spiritual 
domination  ;  and  thus  the  sacerdotal  body  has  held 
the  people  fast,  at  once  by  the  brazen  chains  of  in- 
visible vengeance,  and  by  the  cobwebs  of  frivolous 
ceremony. 


36  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

An  enthusiastic  religion,  or  a  fanatical  one,  may 
also  become  a  fit  engine  of  ghostly  t3Tanny  ;  but  yet 
in  a  far  less  complete  manner.  Superstition  enfee- 
bles its  victims;  Enthusiasm,  and  still  more  Fanati- 
cism, imparts  to  them  a  factitious  strength  ;  and 
therefore  the  priest  has  something  personally  to  fear 
in  availing  himself  of  the  force  they  yield  :  the  fa- 
naticism of  the  people  can  promote  his  ends  only  so 
long  as  he  has  the  skill  to  direct  it  :  his  skill  failing, 
it  may  rend  himself.  The  priest  of  su})erstition  rides 
an  ass  ;  the  priest  of  fanaticism  a  tiger  ;  and  hence  it 
has  happened  that  the  leaders  of  enthusiastic  sects 
have  almost  always  become  proficients  in  that  sort  of 
guile  which  their  difiicult  and  perilous  position  de- 
mands. 

To  avoid  forestalling  the  subject  of  the  following 
Sections  we  abstain  here  from  adducing  specific  in- 
stances :  but  the  practical  inference  should  be  no- 
ticed, that,  as  a  perverted  or  false  religion  favours 
spiritual  despotism  ;  so,  wherever  we  find  spiritual 
despotism  in  fact,  we  may  pretty  safely  assume  that 
the  religious  system  it  maintains  is  either  false  or 
corrupt. 

II.  National  temperament,  in  a  very  marked 
manner,  affects  the  extent  of  sacerdotal  power.  This 
qualifying  influence  is  to  be  separately  observed  in 
relation  to  the  clergy  themselves,  and  in  relation  to 
tiie  people.  A  pertinent  example  under  the  former 
head  is  furnished  by  adverting  to  the  characteristic 
difterence  which  very  early  became  apparent  between 
the  Greek  and  the  Latin  churches  ;  for  while  the 
clergy  of  eastern  Christendom  displayed  the  national 
propensity  of  the  Grecian  mind  to  theoretic  refine- 
ment, to  logical  subtilty,  and  to  boundless  specula- 
tion, and  made  Christianity  chiefly  a  matter  of  intel- 
lect ;  the  clergy  of  the  West,  imbued  with  the  Roman 
passion   for  power,  looked    upon   the  same  Gospel, 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  37 

mainly,  as  opening  a  field  of  government ;  and  very 
soon  found  in  it,  or  added  to  it,  whatever  they 
thought  necessary  for  consolidating  a  vast  spiritual 
despotism.  With  the  Greeks,  the  religion  of  Christ 
came  in  the  place  of  the  spent  philosophy  of  their 
ancient  schools  ;  with  the  Latins,  it  was  a  new  en- 
sign which  they  might  rear  on  the  site  of  the  over- 
thrown empire  of  the  Caesars.  In  the  East,  clerical 
power  propped  itself,  partly  upon  asceticism,  and 
partly  upon  rhetorical  accomplishments  and  learn- 
ing ;  but  in  the  West,  the  hierarchy  moved  steadily 
forward  in  their  course  of  usurpation,  until  they 
snatched  at,  and  could  firmly  grasp,  the  effective 
weapons  of  secular  authority. 

The  diversities  of  national  temperament,  as  affect- 
ing the  people — the  subjects  of  church  power,  may 
be  exemplified  in  the  instance  of  Spain,  France,  and 
England,  the  relations  of  which  with  the  papacy 
have  exhibited  very  strikingly  the  moral  character- 
istics of  each  country.  The  first,  arrogant,  gloomy, 
yet  indolent  and  acquiescent,  has  yielded  herself 
without  reluctance;  and  without  making  conditions, 
to  the  will  of  Rome,  and  has  behaved  herself  as  the 
darling  daughter  of  the  Church.  It  would  hardly 
have  been  known  what  was  in  the  heart  of  the 
mother,  if  she  had  had  no  such  child.  But  France, 
while  she  has  bowed,  has  stipulated  for  the  national 
honour ;  and  has  treated  the  foreign  usurpation  with 
some  becoming  spirit.  Not  strong  enough  in  moral 
force  to  shake  off  the  oppression,  she  has  yet  carried 
herself  gallantly  under  it.  England,  from  of  old, 
has  been  refractory  :  in  every  age  she  has  impa- 
tiently brooked  the  insults  offered  to  her  strong  sense 
and  high  feeling  by  insolent  and  rapacious  Italian 
priests  ;  and  long  before  she  actually  broke  the  yoke, 
behaved  in  a  m.anner  that  gave  Rome  itself  warning 
of  the  events  of  the  Reformation. 


38  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

A  due  consideration  of  the  settled  dissimilarity  of 
national  character  might  suffice  to  invalidate  those 
inferences  that  are  often  attempted  to  be  applied  to 
the  institutions  of  one  country  from  the  example  of 
another.  Although  related  by  natural  descent,  and 
in  a  hundred  other  ways,  no  two  races  of  the  civilized 
world  are  perhaps  more  broadly  distinguished  than 
are  the  English  of  Britain  and  the  English  of  Ame- 
rica. The  very  relationship  of  the  two  people  has 
formed  a  starting  point,  whence  they  have  diverged. 
The  people  of  the  United  States  exist  in  agitation, 
and  act  from  momentary  excitement.  The  people  of 
England  are  jealous  of  excitement ;  and  though  sus- 
ceptible of  agitation,  gladly  and  quickly  return  to  a 
state  of  rest.  The  love  of  order  is  as  strong  on  this 
side  the  Atlantic,  as  is  the  disregard  of  it  on  the 
other.  Here  (a  party  excepted)  authority,  and  those 
gradations  of  rank  which  are  necessary  to  its  stability, 
are  steadily  looked  at,  and  are  approved  of  as  good 
and  beneficial.  There,  from  the  domestic  circle  out- 
ward to  the  political,  natural  sentiments  of  deference 
are  faint,  and  authority  means  very  little  beyond  the 
limits  of  actual  force.  Climate  has  done  something, 
the  geographical  conditions  of  the  country  have 
done  something,  and  the  political  circumstances  of  the 
state  more,  to  place  the  transatlantic  English  at  the 
antipodes  of  Britain.  We  shall  not  then  draw  our 
models  of  government  thence.  No  infatuation  could 
be  more  irrational.  A  certain  order  of  things  may 
indeed  be  good  in  America  ;  or  it  may  be  the  best 
possible  there,  which  is  neither  necessary,  nor  even 
practicable,  nor  in  any  sense  whatever  good,  for  Eng- 
land. England  will  no  more  import  a  church  polity 
from  America,  than  she  will  import  thence  domestic 
slavery,  or  the  republicanism  which  favours  and  en- 
dures it.  Two  very  efficient  causes  preserve  Ame- 
rican Christianity  from  passing  into  some  formof  spi- 


CONDITIONS    OF   CHURCH    POWER.  39 

ritual  despotism:  the  first  is  the  spirit  of  faction, 
which  breaks  the  clerical  body  ;  the  second  is  the 
spirit  of  trade,  which  has  always  been  found  in  an 
especial  manner  to  repel  priestly  encroachments. 
England  assuredly  may  do  better  than  take  her  les- 
sons from  those  who  as  yet  have  so  much  to  learn. 

III.  The  power  of  a  clerical  corporation  is  of 
course  essentially  affected  by  the  relationship  in 
which  it  stands  to  the  civil  authority'.  It  is  a  dream 
to  suppose  that  a  body  of  clergy  can  exist  in  any 
country  in  so  quiescent  or  obscure  a  condition  as  to 
sustain  no  relationship  whatever,  as  such,  to  the  ma- 
gistrate. He,  at  least,  will  never  forget  the  ministers 
of  religion,  even  if  they  are  willing  to  be  forgotten. 
The  Christian  ministry  has  never,  not  even  in  the  era 
of  its  greatest  purity,  so  floated  in  the  political  at- 
mosphere as  an  invisible  element ;  but  has  always 
stood  in  a  tangible  form  among,  or  over-against,  the 
powers  of  the  state.  If  indeed  all  clerical  persons 
and  all  private  Christians  were  as  child-like  and  hea- 
venly as  some  few  are,  the  Church  need  never  be 
heard  of  at  court ;  but  it  is  not,  nor  has  it  ever  been 
so  :  and  there  is  some  disingenuousness  in  propound- 
ing schemes  which  can  seem  practicable  only  in  idea, 
and  which  the  events  of  a  year  or  a  month  must  show 
to  have  been  founded  upon  illusory  notions  of  human 
nature.  The  only  rational  question  is  this.  What 
shall  be  the  conditions  of  the  alliance  between  Church 
and  State — friendly  and  harmonious,  and  well  con- 
certed; or  defensive,  and  cautionary,  and  suspi- 
cious ? 

Some  indeed  seem  to  think  that  those  who  have  the 
care  of  souls  need  no  more  be  regarded  and  dealt 
with  corporately,  by  the  State,  than  those  who  have 
the  care  of  ihe  body;  and  that  the  relationship  of  the 
magistrate  to  the  priest  need  involve  nothing  more 


40  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

than  is  included  in  his  relation  to  the  physician.  But 
this  comparison  is  devoid  of  all  real  analogy.  The 
physician  has  to  do  with  men  individually,  and  apart : 
the  priest  has  to  do  with  them  in  congregation,  and 
as  combined  under  a  system  of  powerful  organiza- 
tion. The  physician  is  called  upon  when  the  mind 
is  occupied  with  the  maladies  of  the  body ;  but  the 
minister  of  religion,  both  in  his  public  and  private 
functions,  has  to  do  with  MIND  immediately,  and  he 
treats  it  too  in  an  excited  state,  or  brings  it  into  such 
a  state.  No  function  of  common  life  is  in  fact  ana- 
logous to  that  of  the  clergy,  and  no  other  presents  it- 
self as  a  counterpoise  to  the  power  of  the  magistrate, 
none  like  this,  therefore,  demands  to  be  well  defined, 
or  at  least  well  adjusted,  within  the  social  system. 
The  very  reason  on  the  ground  of  which  it  is  alleged 
that  the  state  may  overlook  and  leave  to  itself  the 
clerical  body — ^namely,  the  spirituality  of  their  ofKce, 
and  its  independence  of  secular  interests,  might  bet- 
ter be  urged  as  an  imperative  motive  for  employing 
our  best  skill  in  arranging  the  relationship  between 
Church  and  State.  It  is  because  religion  brings  in 
a  power  of  a  transcendent  sort  that  we  are  called  up- 
on to  guard  against  the  abuse  of  it  in  the  hands  of 
the  fanatical  or  the  ambitious. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Church,  meaning  the 
clergy  and  their  devoted  flocks,  has  yet  in  any  coun- 
try or  in  any  age  stood  precisely  in  that  relationship 
to  the  civil  government  which  we  can  think  the  most 
happy  and  safe.  As  for  example,  whatever  good 
may  have  resulted  from  it,  none  would  choose  to 
place  the  Church  on  its  primitive  footing  of  oppres- 
sion and  persecution  : — this  may  indeed  at  seasons 
be  best  for  it,  but  it  is  the  Lord  who  must  say  when. 
The  condition  which  next  followed  was  that  of  am- 
biguous friendship,  and  douTjtful  counterpoise;  a 
condition  which,  in  the  nature  of  things,  could  not 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  41 

be  permanent,  nor  is  ever  desirable.  In  fact  it  gave 
way,  and  very  speedily,  to  a  bold  usurpation  on  the 
part  of  the  Church,  ending  in  the  subversion  or  de- 
gradation of  the  secular  power  ;  and  this  was  suc- 
ceeded by  a  reaction  and  rescue,  too  vehement  and 
impassioned  to  observe  the  hne  of  reason.  To  each 
of  these  states  and  stages  we  shall  have  occasion  here- 
after more  distinctly  to  advert.  At  present  we  only 
name  the  political  relationship  of  the  clergy  as  a 
main  condition  of  the  influence  they  exert,  whether 
for  the  better  or  the  worse. 

IV.  The  source  of  church  revenues,  the  mode  of 
collection,  and  the  rule  of  distribution,  are  circum- 
stances not  always  obtrusive  in  their  influence ;  but 
always  of  the  very  highest  moment,  and  of  the  great- 
est difliculty. 

Some  general  statement  of  this  question  is  every 
way  indispensable  to  our  prosecution  of  the  subject 
in  hand.  In  truth  the  point  of  church  revenues 
comes  little  short  of  being  the  hinge  of  the  whole  ar- 
gument. 

And  let  the  author  here  be  permitted  explicitly  to 
reject  the  imputation  of  entertaining  any  feeling  illi- 
beral in  itself,  or  of  holding  any  opinion  derogatory 
to  the  clerical  character,  or  implying  that  this  order 
is  in  any  peculiar  sense  interested  or  eager  of  lucre. 
The  candid  reader  undoubtedly  will  grant  that  the 
general  tendency  and  intention  of  the  present  volume 
is  not  to  assail,  but  to  defend ;  not  to  depress  or  ex- 
clude, but  to  re-instate  and  corroborate  ;  not  to  vilify, 
but  to  honour,  the  ministers  of  religion.  Believing, 
as  he  firmly  does,  that  the  influence  of  the  sacerdotal 
body  at  present  labours  under  serious  disadvantages 
in  all  Protestant  countries,  and  requires,  for  the  pub- 
lic good,  to  be  brought  up  to  a  higher  mark,  the  au- 
thor claims  to  be  interpreted,  in  whatever  he  may  say, 
4 


42  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

in  a  sense  consistent  with  his  general  purpose,  and 
compatible  with  his  professed  feelings. 

A  peculiarity  attaches  to  the  working  of  those  mo- 
tives which  take  their  spring  from  the  natural  desire 
of  worldly  comfort  and  competency  ;  and  it  is  this, 
that  while  these  motives  are,  generally,  more  steady 
and  efficient  than  any  others,  they  are  the  least  ob- 
trusive or  noticeable  of  any.  It  is  on  this  ground 
that  we  are  liable  to  be  the  most  impelled,  yet  with 
the  least  consciousness  of  impulsion.  Especially 
when  the  conduct  of  bodies  of  men  is  in  question,  is 
it  true  that  the  motive  which,  in  the  long  run,  actually 
draws  all  others  in  its  wake,  is  the  one  concerning 
which  the  individuals  (or  most  of  them)  might  honest- 
ly declare  that  it  was  not  uppermost  in  their  minds. 
Many,  through  the  entire  course  of  their  lives,  have 
followed  a  leading  which  has  never  spoken  aloud,  or 
stood  in  the  light. 

In  estimating  the  average  influence  of  financial  sys- 
tems upon  any  order  of  men,  it  is  idle  to  appeal  to 
the  disinterested  and  generous  sentiments  that  may 
appear  among  them,  or  that  may  in  some  degree  at- 
tach to  the  whole  body.  Such  sentiments  afford  lit- 
tle or  no  security  against  a  perverting  bias  of  which 
few  or  none  are  distinctly  conscious.  WherevTr, 
either  in  the  material  or  the  moral  world,  several  ac- 
tive causes  are  combined,  it  is  seen  that  the  one  which, 
though  it  may  appear  the  feeblest,  is  the  most  steady, 
and  which  presses  on  always  in  the  same  direction,  at 
length  gains  upon  all,  and  leads  the  way.  So  it  is 
in  a  crowd,  urging  their  course  toward  a  narrow  pass : 
some  overpower  their  neighbours  for  a  moment  by 
convulsive  eflorts,  or  by  superior  strength  ;  and 
others  intimidate  them  by  a  noisy  and  arrogant  de- 
mand of  precedence  ;  meanwhile  there  is  one,  per- 
haps, short  of  stature,  and  silent,  who  quietly  and 
constantly  presses  onward  ;   husbands  his  strength, 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  43 

improves  every  accidental  advantage,  slips  in  when 
others  give  way  or  stumble;  alarms  no  fears,  and  in 
fact,  penetrates  the  densest  mass  ;  and  while  his  com- 
petitors are  panting  for  life  in  the  rear,  clears  his 
passage,  and  smiles  at  his  own  success. 

It  is  somewhat  in  this  manner  that  considerations 
of  pecuniary  interest  take  effect  in  our  minds  among 
other  motives,  some  of  which  may  in  fact,  as  well  as 
in  semblance,  sway  our  conduct,  in  single  instances, 
with  a  more  sovereign  power.  The  difficult  and 
perplexing  occasions  of  life  offer  many  ambiguous 
cases,  wherein  high  motives  stand  opposed :  the  real 
and  efficient  power  rests,  in  such  instances,  with  that 
neuter  motive,  be  it  Vt^hat  it  may,  which  is  allowed  to 
have  the  casting  vote.  The  riddle  of  a  man's  histo- 
ry might  often  be  opened  by  this  key.  In  the  mild 
and  reasonable  form  of  a  wish  for  competence,  or  in 
the  inflamed  state  of  avarice,  the  desire  of  money  de- 
termines the  current  of  life ;  in  this  channel  run  the 
mighty  waters  of  the  world's  affairs. 

But  if  this  be  true  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  is  it  so 
of  the  ministers  of  religion  ?  Yes,  true  ;  but  not  in 
any  sense  that  should  throw  upon  them  a  peculiar 
discredit.  Nothing  can  be  more  illiberal  than  to 
make  those  feelings  a  matter  of  reproach  to  any  order 
of  men,  which  are  common  to  our  nature.  There  is 
good  room  to  affirm  that  the  clerical  body,  take  it  in 
what  age  we  please,  compared  with  other  bodies,  has 
exhibited  a  fair  superiority  in  disinterestedness  and 
purity  of  conduct.  It  must  however  be  admitted  that 
the  passion  of  avarice,  like  every  other,  is  apt  to  be 
sharpened  by  restraint;  and  it  will  be  found  that 
those  who,  by  the  conditions  of  their  office,  are  de- 
barred from  the  open  and  healthy  pursuit  of  fortune, 
exhibit  often  a  sort  of  petulent  avidity  when  occasions 
of  gain  are  incidentally  presented. 

And  we  must  advert  once  more  to  the  important 


44  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

trntb,  that  bodies  of  men,  moving  in  concert,  act  in 
a  manner  that  does  not  fairly  indicate  the  personal 
dispositions  of  the  individuals.  Individuals  do  wrong; 
but  bodies  do  mighty  wrong;  and  do  it  without  re- 
morse :  men  singly  have  consciences  ;  but  a  corpo- 
ration has  no  conscience.  A  rational  morality  would 
indeed  teach  ns  that,  although  a  body  is  divided  in 
proportionate  parts  among  the  confederates,  the  guilt 
of  the  wrong  perpetrated  attaches,  undivided  and  en- 
lire,  to  each  of  the  accessories.  But  it  is  not  thus 
that  men  are  accustomed  to  think  ;  and  they  rise  from 
a  table  of  iniquitous  consultation,  calculating  that 
their  share  of  the  advantage  is  to  be  the  measure  of 
their  share  in  the  blame.  Church  history,  like  com- 
mon history,  illustrates  abundantly  this  sort  of  ca- 
suistr}^ ;  nor  can  we  at  all  reconcile  the  proceedings  of 
hierarchies  with  the  personal  reputation  of  the  men 
who  have  acted  under  them,  without  making  very 
frequent  use  of  the  distinction  we  have  mentioned. 
The  saints  were  saints  in  cloister,  but  not  in  con- 
clave. 

A  balance  of  evils,  and  a  compromise  of  advanta- 
ges, has  attached  to  every  scheme  of  clerical  mainte- 
nance hitherto  devised.  If  the  provision  has  been  at 
once  ample,  and  independent  of  the  popular  will, 
sloth,  pride,  and  secularity,  have  crept  upon  those  to 
whom  mankind  should  look  up  for  patterns  of  purity 
and  heavenly-mindedness.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has 
always  been  seen,  and  the  history  of  early  Christianity 
affords  the  most  striking  exemplification  of  the  truth, 
that  when  church  revenues  flow  from  the  precarious 
liberality  of  the  people,  and  are  altogether  undefined, 
exaggerations  of  doctrine,  perversions  of  morality,  su- 
perstitions, mummeries,  hypocrisies,  usurpations,  cru- 
elties, gain  ground,  not  always  slowly,  until  priests 
and  people — the  Church  and  the  State,  are  thorough-^ 


CONDITIONS    OF    CHURCH    POWER.  45 

ly  infected  with   the  worst  sort  of  corruption — reli- 
gious corruption. 

If  we  wish  to  see  what  is  now  vauntingly  termed, 
the  Voluntary  Principle,  fully  evolved,  and  ripened 
under  a  summer  heat,  we  have  only  to  turn  to  the  Pa- 
pacy— the  produce  of  the  voluntary  principle,  with 
its  spiritual  debauchery  and  its  tyranny,  its  lying-  mira- 
cles, its  lying  mendicity,  its  lying  sanctity,  such  as 
we  find  it  in  the  tenth  century :  the  Gospel  utterl}^ 
darkened,  the  civil  authority  trampled  in  the  dust,  the 
people  bound  in  fetters  of  fear  and  ignorance,  and  the 
clergy  transmuted  into  swine,  or  into  wolves :  these 
were  the  fruits  of  that  system  which  leaves  the  priest 
to  set  his  own  price  upon  the  spiritual  goods  he  dis- 
penses among  the  people. 

What  has  happened  once,  may  happen  again  ;  and 
will  do  so  under  like  circumstances.  We  need  not 
draw  upon  imagination  in  conceiving  of  the  natural 
course  of  events,  and  the  operation  of  common  princi- 
ples. The  Church,  we  may  suppose,  instead  of  being 
befriended  by  the  State,  is  barely  tolerated,  or  per- 
haps oppressed.  The  clerical  body,  including  as  it 
may,  many  high-minded  and  disinterested  individuals, 
is  yet,  as  a  body  (what  body  is  not  ?)  actuated  b}^  the 
ordinary  motives  of  our  nature,  and  tends  therefore, 
with  a  silent  and  steady  momentum,  toward  its  corpo- 
rate aggrandizement,  its  wealth,  its  ease,  its  credit, 
and  its  secure  enjoyment  of  special  prerogatives. 
Every  corporation  shifts  itself,  if  it  be  possible,  from 
precarious  ground,  and  moves  toward  that  which  is 
firm.  If  then  the  State  does  not  lend  its  aid  in  this 
endeavour  of  the  clergy  to  substantiate  tiieir  honours 
and  revenues,  a  resource  will  be  found  of  another  sort, 
and  the  minds  of  the  people  will  be  worked  upon  with 
a  proportionate  eagerness,  in  order  to  make  sure  of 
their  subserviency.  Exaggerated  doctrines  will  sup- 
ply  the  place  of  legal  provisions. 
4* 


46  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

The  spontaneous  offerings  of  the  people,  we  may 
suppose,  do  not  quite  fill  the  measure   of  sacerdotal 
avidity:  nay,  perhaps  the  real  wants  of  the  order  are 
inadequately    supplied.     Moreover,    the   church  in- 
come fluctuates,  along  with  the  fluctuations  common 
to  all  mundane  afiairs ;  and   seasons  occur  in  which 
the  clergy  are  exposed  to  vivid  anxieties,  or  endure 
actual  privations.     In   such  a  state  of  things,  while 
the  high-minded  few  will  nobly  suffer  in  patience,  and 
while  perhaps  many  do  so  ;  there  will  not  be  wanting 
some  of  a  more  politic  turn,  who,  with  a  mixed  inten- 
tion— partly  honest,  partly  sordid,  will  labour  to  reme- 
dy the  inconvenience  in  the  mode  which  naturally  sug- 
gests   itself  to   such  spirits.     The    claims  of  ^ God's 
ministers  will  be  asserted  in  a  hyperbolic,  yet  insidious 
style.     The  merit  of  the  offering  laid  upon  the  altar 
of  the  Church  will  be  overrated  in  a  manner  that  at 
once  enfeebles  morality,  and  corrupts  doctrine.     Ge- 
nuine virtue  will  be  made  to  give  way  to  fictitious  vir- 
tue.    The  just  symmetry  or  relative   magnitude   of 
duties  will  be   enormously  distorted.     Superstition, 
and  her   handmaid    Farce,    proffer  their  aid    in  this 
work,  and  some  accommodated  articles  of  belief,   or 
certain  special  usages,   which  may  have  had  another 
origin,  and  may  possess  some  shadow  of  reason,  will 
be  converted  to  the  purpose  of  levying  incidental  con- 
tributions.    By  newly  discovered  or  newly  expanded 
terrors,  the  conscience  of  the  laity  will  be  screwed  up 
to  the  necessary  pitch  in  the  matter  of  pecuniary  aid  ; 
and  what  the  designing  and  the  interested  had  first  set 
a  going,  the  sincere  and  fanatical  will  afterwards  eager- 
ly push   forward  as  a  sheer  article  of  piety.     In  the 
next  age   learned    theologians   may  be  seen  wasting 
their    oil   in  confirming   from   Scripture,  practices  of 
which  knaves  were  the  inventors. 

And  yet  all  tiiis  while  theyre  is  no  compulsion  ;  there 
is  no  tax-gatherer,  or  farmer  of  tithes  ;   no  State  al- 


CONDITIONS    OF    CHURCH  POWER.  47 

Hance,  The  voluntary  principle  is  in  its  full  trium- 
phant course.  Nevertheless  a  system  of  spiritual  des- 
potism, as  cruel  as  it  is  foul,  is  fastening  upon  the 
necks  of  the  people.  The  sword  of  the  magistrate 
does  not  enforce  the  demands  of  the  Church  ;  but  yet 
the  widow's  two  mites  are  snatched  from  her  hand 
by  pampered  priests  ;  and  orphans  see  their  patrimo- 
ny gorged  by  the  bloated  brotherhood  of  the  monas- 
tery. Why  do  any  people  submit  to  an  unarmed  ty- 
ranny of  this  sort?  nothing  binds  them  to  obedience 
but  sentiment  and  opinion  :  their  goods  would  not  be 
distrained  were  they  flatly  to  refuse  their  accustomed 
quotas.  Why  do  they  submit?  Ask  the  Christian 
commonalty  of  the  third  or  fourth  century  ;  ask  the 
European  nations  of  the  ninth  ;  or,  not  to  go  so  far, 
ask  our  contemporaries  and  countrymen,  the  starving 
inmates  of  Irish  hovels. 

In  truth,  what  is  called  voluntary  is  often,  in  the 
worst  sense,  compulsory ;  while  what,  in  common 
parlance,  we  term  compulsory,  is,  in  a  rational  and 
good  sense,  voluntary.  Phrases  caught  at  and  ap- 
propriated without  thought,  in  the  heat  of  controver- 
sy, more  often  than  not  convey  some  gross  misappre- 
hensions of  simple  facts;  it  is  thus  in  the  present 
instance.  The  voluntary  principle,  as  the  source  of 
clerical  maintenance,  in  order  to  deserve  the  name, 
and  to  be  sound  and  safe,  must  take  its  course  under 
very  peculiar  and  well  guarded  conditions  ;  or  it  will 
inevitably  either  grind  the  ministers  of  religion,  or 
bring  upon  the  people  the  worst  sort  of  compulsion. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  compulsory  system,  as  it  is 
insidiously  called,  needs  only  to  be  conformed,  in  its 
mode  of  operation,  to  the  analogy  of  good  govern- 
ment in  civil  aflJairs,  and  we  can  wish  for  nothing 
more  free  or  just. 

Both  the  phrases  in  question,  as  used  in  the  con- 


48  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

troversy  of  the  day,  refer  to  levies  of  money,  made  for 
the  support  of  the  ministers  of  religion.  In  the  one 
case  the  fund  accrues  from  the  unprescribed  contri- 
butions of  those  who  act,  individually,  under  the 
mere  impulse  of  their  personal  feelings  and  opinions. 
In  the  other  case  it  flows,  in  an  equable  stream,  from 
the  entire  community,  and  at  the  immediate  bidding 
of  the  State ;  which,  moreover,  exacts  from  each 
citizen  a  sum  regulated,  as  are  other  taxes,  by  his 
ability,  or  by  the  scale  of  his  general  expenditure  : 
and  this  payment  is  enforced  by  the  State,  without 
regard  to  private  inclinations.  Under  the  former 
method  it  is  always  implied  that,  whoever  chooses  to 
do  so,  may  relinquish  his  interest  in  the  common 
benefit,  and  withdraw  his  contribution  ;  or  he  may, 
at  pleasure,  diminish  his  quota.  Under  the  latter,  of 
course,  relief  is  to  be  obtained  only  in  those  modes 
of  legislative  address  for  which  room  must  be  left  in 
all  imposts :  and  under  this  latter  method  nothing 
else  can  happen,  let  the  tax  be  adjusted  as  it  may, 
but  that  individuals  will  be  found  who  either  disallow 
the  propriety  and  abstract  fitness  of  the  tax;  or  who, 
from  peculiar  circumstances,  are  shut  out  from  the 
benefits  it  dispenses;  or  who  are  aggrieved  by  the 
application  of  the  general  rule  to  their  particular 
case.  No  ingenuity  in  framing  laws  can  absolutely 
exclude  incidental  wrongs,  or  inconveniencies,  of 
this  sort.  The  inestimable  advantages  of  living  in 
society  are  unavoidably  burdened  with  some  partial 
evils. 

Nothing  very  chimerical  is  supposed  when  we 
imagine  the  instance  of  a  country,  enjoying  to  the 
full  the  benefits  of  a  representative  system  of  govern- 
ment, and  in  which  every  question  of  polity  is  deter- 
mined by  the  public  will ; — such  a  country,  we  say, 
great,  and  free,  and  wise,  having  become  generally 
religious  in  its  opinions  and  habits,  and,  moreover, 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  49 

having  learned  to  worship  Almighty  God  in  harmony 
and  love,  has  embraced  the  opinion  (whether  it  be  a 
just  opinion  or  not)  that  the  support  of  the  clergy  is 
one  of  those  matters  which,  from  the  very  peculiar 
conditions  that  attach  to  it,  is  more  safely  and  effec- 
tively provided  for  by  a  public  and  invariable  impost, 
than  by  the  capricious  liberality  of  a  portion  of  the 
people.  Thus  thinking,  the  country  taxes  itself  for 
the  maintenance  of  religion  ;  and,  far  from  grudging 
a  liberal  support  to  its  best  friends  and  worthiest  ser- 
vants, it  sees  that  its  ^wn  highest  welfare  is  involved 
in  the  comfort  and  independence  of  those  who  are  at 
once  to  teach,  and  to  enforce,  morality.  The  clergy, 
tranquil  in  heart,  and  secured  of  a  modest  and  rea- 
sonable competency,  and  protected,  each  in  his  pri- 
vate sphere,  against  the  insolence  of  individuals  ; 
though  not  exempted  from  the  salutary  operation  of 
public  opinion,  exercise"  their  functions  on  the  basis 
of  the  motives  proper  to  it ;  and,  at  least,  are  free 
from  any  temptation  to  work  upon  the  credulity  of 
the  people,  or  to  pervert  religion  to  sinister  ends. 
Such  is  our  imagined  instance.  But  it  will  be 
said — "  This  is  COMPULSION  :  this  is  a  Church  and 
State  alliance  :  this  is  religion  by  act  of  parliament ; 
■ — and  what  not."  Be  it  so  :  nevertheless,  it  is  a 
compulsion  we  should  choose,  and  a  bondage  we 
should  gladly  sustain.  Or,  to  compare  it  with  the 
voluntary  sj^stem  which  history  has  actually  realized, 
the  latter  is  a  spontaneity  we  should  shun,  and  a 
liberty  we  should  dread. 

Theories  apart,  and  the  lessons  of  experience  duly 
regarded  ;  or,  in  other  words,  church  history  looked 
into  for  practical  uses,  there  appears  reason  to  dis- 
trust what  is  termed  the  voluntary  principle  in  rela- 
tion to  church  revenues,  on  the  two  opposite 
grounds,  of  its  inadequacy,  and  its  exuberance ;  or 


50  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

its  sluggishness  in  some  respects,  and  its  extrava- 
gance in  others.  During  one  and  the  same  period, 
and  within  one  and  the  same  circle,  this  mode  of 
maintaining  the  clergy  has  failed  to  propagate  and 
to  support  Christianity  ;  and  yet  has  suffocated  piety 
by  its  profusion  :  it  has  been  not  less  niggardly,  than 
prodigal. 

If  we  desire,  as  undoubtedly  we  ought,  to  stimu- 
late this  power  in  a  safe  manner,  and  to  turn  it  into 
auspicious  channels,  we  should  form  a  sober  and 
exact  estimate  of  its  real  efficiency,  and  of  its  neces- 
sary limits.  This  estimate  can  be  formed  on  no 
other  ground  than  that  of  experience ;  and  if  the 
hollow  croaking  voice  of  antiquity  will  not  gain  our 
ear,  we  must  turn  to  facts  under  our  eye.  These  (as 
we  assume)  make  it  evident  that  a  capital,  and,  as  it 
seems,  an  irremediable  defect  attaches  to  the  volun- 
tary principle,  first,  in  relation  to  the  classes  of  the 
community  it  affects ;  and  secondly,  in  relation  to 
the  purposes  to  which  it  may  be  made  to  apply. 

For  the  first.  The  voluntary  principle,  as  hitherto 
it  has  developed  its  powers,  takes  effect  upon  the 
several  orders  of  the  community  in  no  just  propor- 
tion ;  or  rather,  in  no  proportion  at  all ;  for  while 
the  middle  and  lower  ranks  yield  themselves  to  its 
influence,  the  opulent  and  the  noble  are  scarcely 
touched  by  it.  On  all  subjects  of  public  interest,  the 
former  are  seen  to  be  vastly  more  liable  to  be  wrought 
upon  by  natural  excitements  than  the  latter ;  the 
latter,  indeed,  hardly  in  any  sensible  degree,  and  it 
must  be  confessed  that  the  virtues  of  self-denying 
sympathy,  and  substantial  generosity,  expand  in  a 
much  more  vigorous  and  healthy  manner  among 
those  who  themselves  are  every  day  contending  with 
the  difficulties  of  a  common  lot,  than  among  the 
pampered  children  of  pleasure  and  security.  No 
motive  that  has  hitherto  been  brought  to  bear  upon 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  51 

human  nature  has  availed  to  make  the  rich  liberal 
after  the  proportion  of  the  poor. 

It  hence  follows  that,  if  the  support  of  the  minis- 
ters of  religion  were  left  entirely  to  the  spontaneous 
feelings  of  the  people,  no  equitable  proportion  of 
ability  would  be  observed  between  the  wealthy  and 
the  indigent.  If  the  spiritual  wants  of  a  country  are 
to  be  fully  supplied,  a  burden  beyond  endurance,  and 
fatal  to  the  general  prosperity,  w  ould  be  thrown  upon 
the  middle  classes,  and  upon  the  poor.  It  would  be 
the  noble-spirited  artisan,  the  liberal  shopkeeper,  the 
generous  yeoman,  who  would  raise  the  minister's 
fund;  while  just  gold  enough  to  save  appearances — 
a  pepper-corn  contribution,  would  be  all  that  would 
come  from  the  heaps  of  the  opulent.  In  the  present 
state  of  public  sentiment,  or  in  any  state  which  the 
world  or  the  Church  has  hitherto  exhibited,  or  seems 
likely  to  exhibit,  nothing  less  than  an  impost  not  to 
be  evaded,  and  which  should  in  a  fair  manner  dive 
into  the  rich  man's  bags,  will  avail  to  throw  the 
maintenance  of  the  clergy,  in  any  just  proportion, 
upon  the  public  wealth,  or  prevent  its  falling,  with  a 
ruinous  pressure,  upon  the  industrious  and  the  poor. 

If  we  may  take  the  actual  working  of  this  volun- 
tary principle  among  the  English  Dissenters  as  our 
guide  in  estimating  its  merits,  we  see  it  resting  upon 
the  communities  that  use  it  with  every  sort  of  disad- 
vantageous inequality.  Not  here  to  speak  of  those 
ill  consequences  of  this  system  which  affect  the 
clerical  mind  and  temper,  we  find  the  salaries  of  the 
ministers  (a  few  cases  excepted)  to  be  drawn  chiefly 
from  the  pious  liberality  and  affection  of  the  humble 
and  necessitous;  while  the  opulent  Dissenter  satis- 
fies his  sense  of  justice  by  paying  for  as  many  inches 
of  pew-room  as  he  and  his  family  mathematically 
have  need  of;  and  in  doing  so,  calmly  sees  his  chosen 
spiritual  guide — a  man  of  piety,  and  of  as  much  more 


52  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

sensibility  as  learning  than  himself,  broken  in  heart 
by  the  embarrassments  of  an  insufficient  income. 
The  enormous  disparities  and  disproportions  that  at- 
tach to  this  method  of  supporting  the  ministry,  would 
be  enough  to  bring  its  eligibility  into  suspicion. 

But    again  ;  a   disproportion  of  another  kind  at- 
tends this  same  system  ;  for,  inasmuch    as  Congrega- 
tionalism insulates   each   chapel-society,   and   leaves 
each  to  bear    its    burden  as  it  may,  it  follows,  that, 
while   the    large   congregations   of  great  towns  and 
cities  raise  the  salaries  of  their  ministers  with  no  diffi- 
culty on  the  part  of  the  individual  contributors  ;  the 
small  congregations  of  lesser  towns  and  of  rural  dis- 
tricts,  groan   under  a  burden,    often    of   the    most 
afflictive  weight ;  and  yet,  with  all   their  generous 
efforts,  fail  to  afford  to  a  worthy  and  esteemed  pastor 
the   ordinary  comforts  of  life.     It  is  indeed  by  no 
means  desirable    that   the    salaries    of  all   ministers 
should  be  of  the  same  amount:  this  equalization  could 
not  be  effected  without  putting  constraint  upon  the 
natural  course  of  things  ;  but  unquestionably  it  is  de- 
sirable that  the  rate  of  contrihution  should   be,  at 
least  in  some  degree,  conformed  to  a  rule  of  equity. 
In  every  way  a  loss  of  fiscal  power  is  sustained  by  a 
community  when   one  congregation  is  taxed   at  the 
rate   of  only  two  per  cent,  upon  its  resources,  and 
another  at  the  rate  of  twenty.      The  plainest  dictate 
of  common    sense   would   demand   that   the  church 
funds  of  a  city  or  of  a  district,  embracing,  for  ex- 
ample, four  or  five  large  congregations,  and  a  dozen 
small   ones,   should  be  consolidated  ;  and  then  that 
distribution  should  be  made  to  the  clergy  of  that  dis- 
trict according  to  their  wants,  their  merits,  or  their 
services.     The  clergy  of  a  district,  or  diocess,  draw- 
ing their  incomes  from  a  general  chest,  would  be  set 
at  large  from  their  dependence  upon  the  managers 
of  single  congregations  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  none 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  53 

need  be  left  to  suffer  in  solitude  the  miseries  of  in- 
digence. On  a  plan  of  this  sort,  the  superabundant 
wealth  of  cities  would  be  let  out  to  fertilize  the  coun- 
try. In  affairs  of  this  kind,  as  in  so  many  others, 
John  Wesley  displayed  his  clear  good  sense,  and 
proved  that  he  thought  human  reason,  however  at 
fault  in  matters  of  faith,  to  be  fully  applicable  to  the 
arrangement  of  secular  interests  :  no  religious  theory 
stood  in  the  way  to  interdict  his  efficient  and  eco- 
nomic constitutions. 

In  the  second  place,  the  voluntary  principle,  such 
as  it  is  seen  in  actual  operation,  fails  in  relation  to  the 
OBJECTS  to  which  it  may  be  applied.  Human  nature 
involves  great  and  generous  impulses ;  but  they  are 
far  from  obeying,  ordinarily,  the  guidance  of  reason. 
What  is  spontaneous,  we  may  admire  oftener  than 
imitate.  The  voluntary  principle,  as  a  source  of  reli- 
gious funds,  is  indeed  found  to  meet,  and  sometimes 
to  exceed  the  demand  made  upon  it,  where  vivid  ex- 
citements can  be  brought  afresh  and  afresh,  to  bear 
upon  popular  feelings ;  but  in  those  instances  which 
yield  no  such  excitements,  and  which  involve  a  com- 
prehensive regard  to  remote  consequences,  it  almost 
entirely  fails,  or  leaves  momentous  interests  to  dwin- 
dle or  perish.  The  people — not  even  the  elect  of  the 
people,  and  it  is  the  people  we  have  to  do  with  in  re- 
ligious affairs,  the  people  will  never  care  vividly  and 
affectively  for  what  they  do  not  instantly  compre- 
hend. But  the  maintenance,  the  diffusion,  and  the 
safe  transmission  of  religion,  involve  very  many  pro- 
visions and  measures  of  a  sort  that  appears  superflu- 
ous, or  even  perhaps  pernicious,  to  the  half-taught 
and  unthinking  mass  of  mankind.  It  is  extremely  disin- 
genuous to  affect  to  deny  this.  The  few,  and  a  very 
feWf  perceive  the  necessity  of  this  order  of  means  :  i 
is  the  few  who  must  devise  and  arrange  these  mea- 
sures ;  and  the  few  who  must  carry  them  into  effect. 

5 


54  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

To  throw  religious  interests,  of  every  kind,  upon  po- 
pular impulses,  is  nothing  less  than  to  abandon  some 
that  are  of  prime  importance. 

The  clamour  which  we  now  hear  in  behalf  of  the 
voluntary  principle,  is  in  character  with  that  principle 
itself;  and  affords  a  proper  specimen  of  its  qualities  ; 
— it  is  unthinking,  variable,  and  reckless  of  remote 
consequences.  A  short  time  must  suffice  to  bring 
back  men  of  understanding  to  the  mean  of  common 
sense  on  this  subject.  The  voluntary  principle, 
or  (to  drop  an  ambiguous  and  ill-chosen  phrase) 
we  should  rather  say,  the  generous  impulses  of  the 
mass  of  the  people,  are  admirable  in  their  sphere  ; 
but  they  have  only  their  sphere.  Let  it  be  ima- 
gined that  a  road  were  opened  across  the  fields  of 
space  to  some  planet  of  our  system,  more  beclouded 
than  our  own  ;  and  that  the  proposition  were  made  to 
the  Christian  world  to  send  thither  the  elements  of 
sacred  knowledge.  A  river  of  gold  would  pour  into 
the  treasure-chest  of  such  an  enterprise.  But,  instead 
of  this  animating  scheme  of  benevolence,  let  us  un- 
dertake the  founding  of  a  college,  on  a  large,  rational, 
and  efficient  plan  and  such  as  should  promise  to 
supply  the  Church,  through  a  course  of  ages,  with  a 
well-trained  clergy  : — the  ear  of  the  religious  public 
is  not  to  be  awakened  by  this  chord.  An  Alfred,  or  a 
Wolsey,  may  achieve  such  a  work  ;  but  never  the  good 
folks  that  fill  our  chapels,  or  throng  around  our 
platforms. 

Nor  is  it  objects  of  this  unpopular  sort  merely,  that 
will  be  overlooked  by  the  popular  mind.  While 
amazing  and  highly  commendable  efforts  are  making 
by  the  religious  community  to  send  the  gospel 
abroad,  nothing  like  a  proportionate  exertion  is  made 
to  maintain  and  diffuse  it  at  home.  The  one  object 
is  rich  in  excitement ;  the  other  appeals  coldly  to 
conscience.  The  one,  therefore,  counts  its  gold  by 
thousands,  the  other  by  tens. 


CONDITIONS   OF   CHURCH   POWER.  55 

A  degree  of  intelligence,  and  of  steady  consistent 
principle,  such  as  never  yet  has  belonged  to  any 
Christian  people,  must  have  become  prevalent,  and 
permanently  so,  before  it  can  be  safe,  or  other  than  a 
sheer  infatuation,  to  throw  ourselves  altogether  upon 
popialar  caprice,  for  the  support  of  religion  and  learn- 
ing. This  would  not  be  wise,  even  in  framing  new 
constitutions  upon  new  ground  ;  much  less  would  it 
be  wise  to  permit  the  funds  actually  devoted  by  our 
predecessors  to  the  support  of  public  worship  and  edu- 
cation, to  be  invaded.  In  this  country  we  are  not 
now  called  upon  to  compose  afresh  the  bare  elements 
of  the  social  system,  or  to  discuss  primary  and  abstract 
political  doctrines ;  but  to  decide  upon  the  practical 
and  very  intelligible  question  of  upholding  our  actual 
and  ancient  institutions,  and  of  defending  them, 
during  an  unquiet  season,  against  popular  restlessness 
and  factious  intentions.  We  are  not  to  found  an  Es- 
tablishment ; — we  possess  one.  We  are  not  balancing 
between  untried  schemes ;  but  are  intrusted  with  the 
care  of  institutions  commended  to  us  by  our  fathers, 
and  which  we  may  not  break  up,  or  suffer  to  be  broken 
up,  without  incurring  a  heavier  responsibihty  than 
we  have  the  means  of  estimating:  it  is  our  sons  who 
will  weigh  our  imprudence,  arraign  our  treachery, 
or  contemn  our  cowardice. 

The  want  of  ingenuousness,  and  of  intelligence, 
too,  that  marks  the  present  advocacy  of  the  voluntary 
principle,  tends  to  bring  into  discredit  a  mighty 
engine  of  Christian  benevolence,  indeed,  the  only 
engine  that  can  be  relied  upon  for  effecting  the  vast  en- 
terprises of  charity  which  our  hearts  cherish  on  behalf 
of  mankind  at  large. 

And  let  it  be  remembered  that,  while  we  call  in 
question  this  method  of  maintaining  the  ministers  of 
rehgion,  and  insist  upon  its  insufficiency,  its  inequali* 


56  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

ty,  and  its  unhappy,  though  concealed  influence,  a 
high  praise  is,  or  ought  to  be  secured,  for  the  thou- 
sands among  us  who,  from  moderate  resources,  cheer- 
fully draw  what  they  draw  for  the  support  of  their 
clergy.  Those  who  feel  more  as  Enghshmen  than 
as  Churchmen,  and  more  (may  we  say  it)  as  philoso- 
phers than  as  religionists,  will  exult  in  reflecting  upon 
the  proof  which  English  dissent  exhibits  of  the  liberal- 
ity and  of  the  generous  elastic  sentiment  that  be- 
long to  the  national  character.  If  any  attribute  these 
great  pecuniary  eflJbrts  mainly,  or  in  any  great  pro- 
portion, to  the  impulse  of  a  factious  zeal,  they  are 
utterly  uninformed  of  facts,  as  well  as  miserably  sple- 
netic. The  church  fund,  raised  yearly  by  the  Dis- 
senters of  all  classes,  sheds  a  splendour  upon  Britain 
brighter  than  the  glitter  of  her  arms  :  heaven  thinks  it 
so,  even  if  earth  has  no  eye  to  see  it. 

Or,  to  look  beyond  the  circle  of  dissent,  the  volun- 
tary contributions  raised  in  this  country  for  religious 
and  benevolent  purposes,  by  the  middle  and  lower 
classes,  chiefly,  may  well  fill  every  patriotic  breast 
with  the  warmest  emotions  of  pleasure.  Who  is  so 
cramped  by  sectarian  jealousies — who  is  so  misan- 
thropic— who  so  cold  to  the  glory  of  his  country,  as 
not  to  exult  in  what  the  heavily-burdened  people  of 
England  have  been  doing  during  the  past  thirty 
years,  and  are  doing,  with  unabated  generosity?  No 
such  mighty  river  of  charity  has  before  rolled  upon 
earth's  surface  ;  and  it  swells  every  year  :  if  hemmed 
in  or  diminished  for  a  moment,  it  bursts  its  banks 
anon,  and  deepens  its  channel.  Before  God  we  do 
not  glory  ;  for  we  still  do  less  than  is  our  duty :  but 
before  men — before  all  other  nations,  we  may  modestly 
say,  "  Copy  the  pattern  we  set." 

If  there  are  those  among  us  who  allow  themselves 
to  speak  and  think  with  contempt  of  the  generous 
religious  enterprises  and  the  noble  contributions  of 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.      57 

our  several  Christian  communities,  let  them  only 
transport  themselves  in  idea  to  a  distant  futurity,  and 
consider  in  what  light  this  large  religious  benevo- 
lence will  appear  to  posterity.  The  men  of  that  fu- 
ture time  may  be  vastly  more  munificent  than  our- 
selves ;  but  certainly  they  will  not  forget  us,  their 
predecessors,  who  have  broke  a  path  upon  this  field 
of  noble  and  expansive  good-will.  It  is  we  who  have 
shown  what  kindly  force  there  is  in  human  nature 
when  warmed  by  Christianity:  it  is  we  who  have 
successfully  made  the  economic  experiment  which 
proves  that,  let  taxation  reach  what  height  it  may, 
and  let  commercial  perplexity  lour  over  a  people  as 
it  may,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  nor  both  in 
conjunction,  can  repress  the  elasticity  of  Christian 
benevolence.  It  is  we  who  have  given  a  lesson  of 
arithmetic  to  the  world  that  will  never  be  forgotten — 
a  new  calculus,  that  will  solve  all  problems  of  cha- 
rity. 

Should  it  be  attempted  to  deduct  from  this  praise, 
on  the  ground  of  what  some  may  deem  the  injudi- 
cious direction  that  has  been  given  to  our  zeal  in 
certain  instances  ;  we  reply,  that  this  is  to  forget  the 
substance  in  the  circumstance ;  for  what  is  the  chafi 
to  the  wheat  f  Even  if  our  enterprises  had  been  all 
fruitless,  they  were  not  the  less  great  in  conception, 
or  sincere  in  intention.  But  they  have  been  success- 
ful ;  and  thousands  have  blessed  England,  and  her 
missionaries.  Nay,  if  any  portion  of  our  praise  is 
set  off  because  our  success  has  not  been  greater,  we 
claim  it  back  again,  as  due  to  us  on  another  plea; 
inasmuch  as  slender  success  enhances  the  merit  of 
perseverance,  if  the  end  be  good.  There  were  Greeks 
in  the  age  of  Themistocles  who  had  no  eye,  or  ear, 
or  heart,  for  the  glory  of  their  country,  when  liberty 
and  civilization  were  saved  at  Thermopylae — Boe- 
tians,  born  on  the  soil  of  Greece,  but  destitute  of  its 
5* 


58  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

soul.  Are  there  English  who  can  fret  in  sectarian 
vexation  while  their  warm-hearted  countrymen  are, 
with  a  costly  zeal,  diffusing  liberty,  and  civilization, 
and  truth,  over  the  world? 

These  happy  and  pregnant  impulses,  then,  are 
not  to  be  repressed,  but  encouraged  ;  and  are  not  to 
be  regarded  with  jealousy,  but  with  hopeful  exulta- 
tion. Yet  we  must  not  so  doat  upon  the  voluntary 
principle  as  to  forget  common  sense,  or  to  think  it 
applicable  to  every  thing.  No  ambiguity,  in  fact,  at- 
taches to  the  course  we  should  pursue  ;  for,  while  the 
freest  scope  should  be  given  to  popular  liberality, 
and,  while  it  should  be  invited  to  occupy  as  large  a 
field  as  it  will ;  we  are  unquestionably  bound  to  hold 
entire  those  more  steady  resources,  actually  existing, 
the  place  of  which  the  voluntary  principle  is  not  rea- 
dy to  supply,  or  for  the  supplying  of  which  it  does 
not  seem  well  adapted. 

The  question  of  coercive  measures,  -and  of  fiscal 
enactments,  as  opposed  to  the  spontaneous  exertions 
of  the  people,  presents  nearly  the  same  conditions, 
to  whatever  class  of  public  services  it  relates.  Few  of 
the  institutions  by  which  social  order  is  maintained 
might  not  be  dispensed  with  if  mankind  generally 
were  good,  just,  and  consistently  reasonable.  What 
so  easy  or  simple  as  the  business  of  government,  if 
virtue  and  moderation  were  prevalent?  Instances 
have  occurred,  and  others  may  readily  be  imagined, 
in  which  generous  and  patriotic  sentiments,  strongly 
excited  by  peculiar  circumstances,  have,  for  a  time  at 
least,  siiperseded  the  ordinary  provisions  of  govern- 
ment, and  have  remanded  its  compulsory  forces. 
Nothing  absolutely  forbids  our  looking  forward  to 
an  age  when  prisons  shall  crumble  into  ruin,  the  mi- 
litary art  be  forgotten,  the  tax-gatherer  lose  his  of- 
fice, and  the  small  residue  of  public  expenditure  be 


\ 


CONDITIONS    OF   CHURCH  POWER.  59 

amply  and  securely  provided  for  by  the  unprompted 
ofierings  of  the  people. 

None  could  deplore  such  a  change,  or  regret  the 
good  old  times  of  the  sword  and  the  chain.  The  vo- 
luntary principle,  fully  expanded,  and  permanently 
brought  into  action,  would  leave  nothing  to  be  wish- 
ed for  in  our  social  condition,  and  little  to  be  done 
by  senates,  councils,  or  kings.  Towards  so  happy  a 
state  let  us  tend  ;  but  tend  prudently.  Need  it  be 
said  that  prudence  does  not  allow  the  actual  deve- 
lopement  of  the  spontaneous  principle  to  be  ii)  any 
case  anticipated,  or  the  existing  mechanism  of  go- 
vernment, with  its  coercive  provisions,  to  be  taken 
down,  until  after  it  has  become  conspicuous  and  un- 
questionable that  they  are  no  longer  necessary.  Mean- 
while, we  must  endure  law  and  its  sanctions. 

Nevertheless,  long  before  the  age  of  universal 
wisdom  and  virtue  arrives,  there  may  be  small  cir- 
cles within  which  the  substitution  of  what  is  volunta- 
ry for  what  is  compulsory,  may  safely  and  advanta- 
geously take  place.  Indeed  there  are  services  and 
functions  of  so  peculiar  a  sort  that  they  must  be  dis- 
charged voluntarily,  or  not  at  all.  Most  of  the  la- 
bours of  charity  are  of  this  kind ;  and,  at  a  first 
glance,  it  would  appear  that  the  offices  of  reli- 
gion pre-eminently  ask  to  come  under  the  opera- 
tion of  the  freest  sentiments,  and  must  wholly  exclude 
whatever  is  not  in  the  highest  sense  generous  and  ele- 
vated. But  in  this,  as  in  so  many  instances,  theory 
fails  to  be  borne  out  by  experience  ;  and  we  are  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  the  infirmity  of  human  nature, 
the  many  inconsistencies  that  attach  to  our  opinions 
and  our  conduct,  and  the  waywardness  and  vehe- 
mence of  the  passions,  render  necessary  certain 
modes  of  proceeding,  such  as  our  previous  specula- 
live  notions  would  never  have  suggested. 

The  maintenance  of  the  ministers  of  religion  we 


60  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

assume  to  be  a  case  in  which  experience  and  history 
give  their  vote  against  tiiose  lofty  schemes  which  we 
might  have  wished  to  entertain.  Or  taking  the  argu- 
ment on  the  lowest  ground,  we  must  at  the  least  affirm 
that,  where  a  legal  provision  for  the  clergy  actually 
exists,  and  has  long  existed,  the  voluntary  system, 
which  never  yet  has  been  seen  to  cover  any  country 
with  the  means  of  religious  instruction,  and  which  is 
apt  not  to  work  favourably,  cannot  be  allowed  to 
break  up  that  provision. 

Those  who  are  always  appealing  to  the  efficacy  of 
the  voluntary  principle  in  the  first  ages  of  the  Church, 
should  take  care  to  be  informed  of  the  actual  arrange- 
ments under  which  it  took  place.  The  pecuniary  po- 
sition of  Christian  ministers  during  the  first  three  cen- 
turies was,  in  its  essential  points,  and  in  its  indirect 
influence  over  priests  as  well  as  people,  as  unlike  to 
the  one,  as  it  is  to  the  other  of  the  two  modes  of  cleri- 
cal maintenance  that  prevail  in  this  country.  If  the 
system  of  tithes,  and  the  legal  enforcement  of  a  de- 
finite impost  was  then  unknown  ;  so  likewise  was  the 
direct  dependence  of  single  ministers  upon  the  will, 
taste,  and  opinion  of  single  congregations.  No 
such  contempt  of  the  sacred  office  was  ever  thought 
of  as  is  involved  in  the  raising  of  a  stipend  for  the 
support  of  a  particular  teacher,  elected  by  the  contri- 
butors, and  removeable  at  their  pleasure.  Submission 
to  terms  so  humiliating  was  never  asked  of  primitive 
pastors  or  teachers ;  and  wherever  it  is  yielded  to, 
nothing  less  than  a  high  rate  of  personal  character 
suffices  to  secure  a  necessary  pastoral  authority,  or 
to  preserve  the  integrity  of  Christian  doctrine  and 
morals. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  a  clerical  body  draws  its 
support  from  a  legal  provision,  and  is  exempted 
from  pecuniary  solicitude,  and  from  immediate  de- 
pendence upon  the  people,  it  is  manifest  that  there  is 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  61 

needed,  and  every  well-informed  and  unprejudiced 
mind  will  instantly  admit  it,  some  strong  corrective 
influence,  some  efficient  counterpoise,  such  as  shall 
check  the  advance  of  a  secular  spirit,  and  disturb  the 
drowsiness  of  worldly  tempers.  A  body  of  clergy, 
at  once  exonerated  of  all  solicitude,  removed  from  all 
dependence,  and  at  the  same  time  sheltered  from  the 
salutary  operation  of  public  opinion,  or  at  least  so 
shielded  as  to  save  the  inert  and  negligent  from  real 
alarms,  such  a  body,  we  say,  wants  a  stay  to  its  vir- 
tue which  human  nature  may  not  safely  dispense  with. 
Ministers  of  religion  so  seated  under  the  hedge,  may 
look  down  upon  others,  beating  the  waves,  and  bless 
their  happier  lot ;  but  all  such  boasting  is  vain  ;  the 
congratulation  of  those  who  are  at  ease  is  often,  and 
assuredly  it  is  so  in  this  instance,  a  fatal  delusion.  To 
rejoice  that  we  are  free  from  every  invigorating  ex- 
citement, and  to  be  glad  that  we  are  not  permitted  to 
breathe  the  open  fresh  air,  is  the  pitiable  solace  of  a 
crazed  hypochondriac. 

The  Christian  ministry,  let  us  remember,  may  forfet 
its  dignity  and  its  efficiency  in  more  modes  than  one; 
and  if  cashiered  of  its  due  influence  and  honour  by 
subserviency  to  democratic  insolence ;  on  the  other 
side,  it  surrenders  its  vital  power  when  what  is  spirit- 
ual, divine,  immortal,  is  treacherously  bartered  for 
what  is  temporal  and  earthly. 

People  and  priest  ought  to  be  connected  by  some 
sort  of  effective  reciprocity  :  let  not  the  priest  be  the 
slave  of  people  ;  nor  stand  in  an  obsequious  relation 
to  a  few  individuals  ;  nevertheless,  both  parties 
should  feel  that  there  is  vitality  in  the  bond  of  their 
union.  But  we  here  touch  upon  matters  that  must 
be  more  distinctly  referred  to  in  a  fitter  place.  It 
must  now  suffice  to  say  that,  in  consenting  to  the  ab- 
solute exclusion  of  the  mass  of  the  people  from  every 
kind  of  control  over  church  affairs,  the  clergy  inffict 


62  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

upon  themselves  a  more  serious  injury,  if  it  be  possi- 
ble, than  that  which  is  sustained  by  their  flocks.  The 
clergy  will  regain  a  genuine  influence  on  the  same 
day  on  which  the  people  are  restored  to  their  natural 
rights,  and  their  christian  privileges.  In  truth,  both 
clergy  and  people  are  the  victims,  in  our  English 
Establishment,  of  LAY  USURPATIONS,  prescriptive 
indeed,  and  DEAR  TO  A  FEW,  but  such  as  must  admit 
correction  if  they  are  not  to  work  its  ruin. 

We  have  thus  briefly  presented  to  view  the  four 
main  conditions  that  affect  the  power  of  hierarchies ; 
namely,  the  quality  of  the  religion,  the  national  tem- 
perament of  the  people,  the  political  position  of  the 
clergy  in  the  state,  and  the  source  of  church  reve- 
nues. Spiritual  despotism,  to  reach  its  utmost  height, 
must  be  favoured  by  each  of  these  conditions  ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  religion  which  is  the  vehicle  of  it  must  be 
fraught  with  superstition — the  people  must  have  sunk 
into  a  servile  and  sluggish  humour — the  Church 
must  have  got  the  better  of  the  civil  power,  and  the 
wealth  of  the  country  must,  without  regulation  or 
control,  be  at  the  command  of  the  clergy.  Spiritual 
despotism  is  necessarily  redressed,  or  excluded — 
when  theology  is  reformed — when  learning  and  com- 
merce restore  intelligence  and  liberty  to  the  people — 
when  the  civil  authority  resumes  its  functions  and 
rights,  a  friendly  reciprocity  being  established  be- 
tween Church  and  State;  and  lastly,  when  the  nice 
matter  of  revenue  is  well  defined,  and  is  set  clear  of 
the  opposite  liabilities  to  disorder  that  aflect  it. 

But  there  are  evils  that  attend  the  reaction  by 
which  spiritual  despotisms  are  overthrown.  These 
take  place — when  the  dread  of  church  power,  and 
the  jealous  resistance  of  spiritual  encroachments, 
lead  to  a  rejection,  or  a  virtual  exclusion  of  those  po- 
tent principles  that  impart  to  religion  its  practical 
efficiency,  and  that  invest  it  with  a  solemn  and  se» 


CONDITIONS  OF  CHURCH  POWER.  63 

rious  dignity  ; — when  the  growth  of  popular  senti- 
ments, and  the  republican  feeling,  operates  to  with- 
hold from  the  clergy  so  much  independent  authority 
as  is  indispensable  to  the  faithful  discharge  of  their 
duties ; — when  the  magistrate,  in  his  caution  against 
the  insidious  advances  of  clerical  ambition,  holds  the 
Church  in  subserviency  to  his  immediate  pleasure, 
and  gives  it  no  leave  to  exercise  its  proper  legisla- 
tive and  administrative  functions ;  and  lastly,  when 
the  rapacity  pf  Churchmen  is  guarded  against  in 
either  of  those  extreme  methods  of  which  the  one 
tightens  too  much  the  dependence  of  the  clergy  upon 
their  flocks,  and  the  other  snaps  it. 


64  SPIRITUAL  DEPOTISM. 


SECTION  III. 

SKETCH  OF  ANCIENT  HIERARCHIES,  AND  THAT  OF  THE  JEWS. 

The  general  subject  of  sacerdotal  power,  and  the 
abuses  to  which  it  is  liable,  cannot  be  treated  with 
reference  merely  to  modern  institutions,  modern  no- 
tions, and  immediate  interests.  Neither  the  guiding 
principles  which  we  have  to  seek  for  in  the  New 
Testament,  nor  the  real  import  of  the  allusions  made 
therein  to  the  constitutions  of  the  primitive  Church, 
can  be  understood  without  some  knowledge  of  the 
notions  and  usages  of  the  times  ;  and  these  involve, 
not  merely  Jewish  but  heathen  opinions  and  prac- 
tices. One  cannot  read  a  page  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical controversies  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  without  feeling  that  the  reasoning,  on  both 
sides,  is  very  often  vitiated,  either  by  the  want  of  this 
sort  of  information,  or  by  the  misuse  of  it. 

A  just  conception  of  the  Jewish  church  polity  is, 
we  say,  indispensable  to  an  understanding  of  the 
polity  of  the  Christian  Church ;  and  the  former  de- 
mands at  least  a  hasty  glance  at  the  contemporary 
pagan  systems. 

Our  modern  European  institutions,  civil  as  well  as 
sacred,  combine  heterogeneous  materials,  of  various 
accidental  origin,  and  often  not  so  much  composed, 
as  jumbled  together  by  the  revolutions  of  ages.  On 
the  contrary,  the  ancient  oriental  politics  suggest  the 
idea  of  homogeneous  abstract  conceptions,  the  pro- 
ducts of  single  minds,  or  of  a  few  minds  in  concert. 
The  former  are  accumulations,  in  the  rearing  of 
which  the  hand  of  time  is  more  apparent  than  the 


ANCIENT  HIERARCHIES.  65 

mind  or  purpose  of  man  :  but  the  latter  are,  or  seem 
to  be,  digested  schemes,  whereof  the  several  compo- 
nents stand  rationally  related  one  to  the  other.  Might 
it  be  said  that  the  freedom  of  Europe  has  sprung,  in 
part  at  least,  from  the  accidental  construction  of  our 
social  systems  ;  while  the  despotism  of  Asia  has  been 
the  fruit  (to  some  extent)  of  the  creative  purpose  of 
primeval  autocrats  ? 

Those  vast  Asiatic  structures,  some  of  which  have 
weathered  the  storms  of  four  thousand  years,  one 
must  believe  to  have  been  planned  by  comprehen- 
sive minds,  and  moulded  by  hands  strong  enough  to 
depress  or  ennoble,  ai  pleasure,  the  several  classes  of 
the  community.  This  controlling  power  appears  in 
some  instances  to  have  been  guided  by  motives  of 
religion,  and  in  others  to  have  been  drawn  from  the 
resources  of  secular  authority.  In  truth  the  oriental 
governments  might  well  enough  be  classified  ac- 
cording as  they  seem  to  have  sprung  from  the  will  of 
the  soldier,  the  sage,  or  the  priest.  Whenever  the 
latter  was  the  founder  of  the  state,  every  thing  is 
made  to  bear  upon  sacerdotal  prerogative  and  dig- 
nity :  the  nation  exists  for  its  priests  ;  not  the  priests 
for  the  nation  :  religion,  and  it  must  be  a  religion  of 
the  darkest  colours,  is  the  one  reason  of  every  law 
and  usage.  The  land  is  the  property  of  the  gods  ; 
the  people  are  the  slaves  of  the  gods;  and  the  priests 
are  the  vicegerents  of  every  kind  of  authority,  and 
the  only  absolute  possessors  of  the  goods  of  life ; 
every  title  except  theirs  is  precarious  and  conditional. 
Such  seems  to  have  been  the  idea  of  the  primitive 
Egyptian  polity.  We  should  bear  this  in  mind  when 
we  contemplate  the  Mosaic  institutions.  The  papacy, 
at  the  height  of  its  pride,  went  near  to  realize  the 
same  conception  :  it  was  the  ideal  which  the  Church 
placed  before  her,  and  toward  which  she  pressed. 

But   happily  there  is  a  weakness  inherent  in  this 
sort  of  sacerdotal  system.     A  polity  founded  upon 
6 


66  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

religious  dogmas  does  not  fail  to  generate  schisms; 
then  the  prince,  or  the  soldier,  steps  forward,  cheer- 
fully supported  by  the  least  fanatical  portion  of  the 
people,  to  arbitrate  between  the  pope  and  the  ortho- 
doxy of  Memphis,  and  the  pope  and  the  heterodoxy 
of  Thebes.  The  sacerdotal  power  once  broken  by 
division  is  never  restored  ;  the  natural  equihbrium 
of  society  returns  with  force  ;  and  the  priests  thence- 
forward are  left  in  possession  of  their  bare  mumme- 
ries and  their  indolence.  Yet  the  triumphant  prince, 
in  thus  gaining  the  mastery  over  superstition,  still 
keeps  it  in  credit  as  a  necessary  prop  of  his  own 
authority.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  course  of 
events  in  ancient  Egypt. 

The  social  structure  of  India  was  better  devised 
than  that  of  Egypt;  and  in  fact  it  has  been  immor- 
tal.    The   Brahminical,  like  the  Egyptian  institu- 
tions, must  have  been  framed  by  and  for  the  sacer- 
dotal order;   but  with  more  skill   and  moderation. 
Whatever  might  be  the  relative  proportion  between 
priests  and  people  in  India  and  in  Egypt,  in  this  lat- 
ter the  undi&tinguished  many  stood  together  opposed 
to   the  privileged  few ;  but  in  the  other,   the  mass, 
being  distinctly  severed  into  portions,  was  internally 
balanced,  part   against  part ;  and  the  sacred   caste 
appeared  rather  as  a  mediator  among  the  rest,  than 
as  the  obnoxious  and  exclusive  possessors  of  every 
dignity.     The  lowest  caste  looked  to  the  one  next 
above  it,  rather  than  to  the  highest,  with  malign  im- 
patience; and  the  two  intermediate  orders,  having 
each  its  prerogatives  to  defend  against  a  lower,  would 
naturally  sustain  the  highest  as  its  protector.     The 
Egyptian  hierarchy  was  raised  aloft  as  if  on  the  top 
of  an   obelisk;  that   obelisk  received  a  shock,  and 
fell;  but  the  wary  Brahmin  took  his  station  on  the 
summit  of  a  broad  based  pyramid,  and  there  he  has 
securely  reposed  while  every  thing  else  mundane  has 
been  upturned. 


ANCIENT    HIERARCHIES.  67 

It  is  in  Thibet  that  the  idea  of  a  hierocracy  has 
been  realized  in  the  most  complete  manner.  When 
the  Romanist  compares  his  own  system  with  this, 
between  which  and  his  own  the  resemblance  is  too 
remarkable  to  escape  notice,  he  feels  how  much  that 
Asiatic  despotism  has  the  advantage  over  the  Euro- 
pean. For  example,  the  one  has  had  to  deal  only 
with  the  inert  and  stupid  Mongul  and  Tartar,  while 
the  other  has  been  contending  against  the  native  spi- 
rit and  energy  of  the  western  nations.  Again,  the 
religion  of  Thibet  has  commanded,  without  control, 
the  boundless  resources  of  error  ;  but  the  bane  of  the 
Romish  Church,  and  the  occasion  of  most  of  its  dif- 
ficulties and  its  dangers,  has  been  its  connexion  with 
Christianity,  and  its  possession  of  books  of  acknow- 
ledged authority,  which  could  neither  be  destroyed, 
concealed,  nor  so  interpreted  as  to  consist  with  its 
doctrines  and  practices.  The  Grand  Lama  has  slept 
upon  his  sofa,  while  his  brother  of  Rome  has  been 
racked  with  anxieties  in  repressing  heresy  after  he- 
resy. Once  more,  by  boldly  assuming  the  doctrine 
of  an  actual  indwelling  of  the  divinity  in  the  person 
of  the  sovereign  pontiff,  and  by  keeping  him  close  in 
his  closet,  and  sealing  his  lips,  the  religion  of  Thibet 
has  secured  a  far  more  profound  submission  and  re- 
ference from  its  votaries  than  could  be  challenged 
by  the  mere  Vicar  of  God. 

China  and  Thibet  stand  opposed  as  extreme  in- 
stances in  matters  of  religion :  in  the  former  the 
secular  spirit  has  gained  the  ascendency,  and  religion 
is  a  mere  appendage  to  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment. All  that  is  vital  in  the  religion  of  China  is 
embodied  in  that  sentiment  of  which  the  emperor  is 
the  object,  as  the  father  of  his  people. 

Druidism  passed  away,  not  only  because  it  occu- 
pied a  soil  destined  to  civilization  ;  but  because  it 
brought  sanguinary  rites  into  northern  latitudes, 
where  life  bears  a  far  higher  value  than  it  does  within 


68  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

the  tropics,  and  where  cruelties  are  therefore  so 
much  ihe  more  horrible.  The  religion  of  the  um- 
brageous wilderness  could  not  but  disappear  very 
soon  after  industry  had  begun  to  trench  upon  the 
skirts  of  the  forest ;  and  the  axe  that  admitted  the 
light  of  the  sun  into  sacred  glooms  frightened  away 
the  murky  divinity  that  had  brooded  in  the  shade. 
Druidism  took  shelter  under  an  oak,  where  it  could 
make  no  stand  when  the  force  of  opinion  failed 
it ;  but  Brahminism — its  parent,  chose  its  home  in 
.  palaces  of  marble,  and  in  temples  that  served  it  as 
fortresses. 

But  we  do  not  reach  the  ground  of  rational  com- 
parison with  things  related  to  ourselves  until  we 
come  to  those  regions  where  genuine  civilization  has 
taken  root.  Judaism  excepted,  nothing  Asiatic 
carries  an  inference  practically  applicable  to  our 
European  and  modern  interests. 

Although  the  early  history  of  Greece  presents  par- 
ticular instances  of  what  has  been  called  codification, 
or  the  entire  modelling  of  the  social  elements  at  a 
certain  time,  and  by  certain  persons,  yet  the  Grecian 
politics  and  manners  and  religious  system,  taken  at 
large,  were  (like  those  of  modern  Europe)  a  various 
product  of  very  many  accidental  causes,  modifying 
the  intellectual  and  moral  character  of  the  race. 
This  race  was  far  too  active  and  masculine  in  its 
temperament  to  yield  itself  to  the  plastic  hand  either 
of  sage  or  priest,  in  any  such  manner  as  took  place 
among  the  Asiatic  nations.  The  Greeks,  especially 
in  the  times  preceding  the  Peloponnesian  war,  were 
eminently  a  religious  people :  their  religion  entered 
into  every  part  of  the  economy  of  life,  private  and 
public :  nevertheless  it  did  not  place  a  despotic 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  sacerdotal  order.  The  re- 
ligion was  not  devised  or  imposed  for  the  sake  of  the 
priests,  or  with  any  view  to  their  advantage ; — they 


ANCIENT   HIERARCHIES.  69 

were  its  ministers,  not  its  masters.  On  all  occasions 
the  religion  was  more  regarded  than  the  priests  :  the 
people  preserved  that  sincere  homage  which  they 
paid  to  the  gods,  quite  clear  of  any  cringing  to  the 
interpreters  and  servants  of  the  divinity.  The 
priests — and  this  is  a  most  important  circumstance, 
were  not  all  in  all,  as  mediators  between  heaven  and 
earth  ;  for  their  functions  might  be  discharged  by 
others  without  sacrilege  :  the  doctrine  of  an  incom- 
municable sacredness,  and  an  inviolable  prerogative 
was  not  admitted.  On  emergencies,  at  least,  the 
highest  offices  of  piety  were  performed  by  chiefs  and 
princes;  and  thus  the  chord  of  spiritual  despotism 
was  cut. 

If  we  look  to  the  period  previous  to  the  diffusion 
of  a  sophistical  and  sophisticating  philosophy,  and 
while  genuine  sentiments  were  still  prevalent  in  the 
higher  as  well  as  the  lower  classes,  we  shall  find  that, 
though  the  priestly  order  performed  duties  highly 
thought  of,  and  were  themselves  respected  for  the  sake 
of  their  office,  yet  the  due  performance  of  those  duties 
was  not  held  to  demand  any  very  eminent  personal 
qualities  or  talents ;  or,  at  any  rate,  not  those  particu- 
lar accomplishments  or  virtues  which  were  the  objects 
either  of  popular  admiration  or  of  philosophic  esteem. 
For  examples  of  patriotic  magnanimity  and  self-deny- 
ing probity  the  people  did  not  look  to  their  priests, 
any  more  than  they  did  to  their  gods :  for  this  pur- 
pose their  eye  was  directed  not  to  the  temple,  but  to 
the  senate  or  the  field.  Then,  so  far  as  religion  was 
considered  in  connexion  with  abstract  truth,  it  belong- 
ed altogether  to  the  province  not  of  the  priest,  but  of 
the  sage :  the  servants  of  the  gods  were  the  last  men 
that  were  supposed  to  hold  any  commerce  with  great 
and  sublime  principles,  or  with  the  precepts  of  uni- 
versal morality.  Again ;  the  educatioji  of  youth 
was  intrusted  not  to  them,  but  to  the  professors  of  se- 
cular arts — rhetoric  and  gymnastics.  Even  for  fresh 
6* 


70  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

and  animating  impressions  of  the  ideality  and  the  poe- 
try of  their  religion,  it  was  not  to  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion, but  to  their  poets,  dramatists,  sculptors,  and 
painters,  that  the  Greeks  had  recourse.  And  to  sum 
up  all,  that  personal  sanctity  which  the  ministers  of 
the  gods  were  expected  to  possess,  was  by  no  means  a 
quality  analogous  to  the  virtues  of  common  life :  it 
was  not  a  perfection  of  the  same  order;  nor  could  it 
secure  the  regards  of  those  among  the  people  who  as- 
pired to  goodness,  temperance,  and  justice.  The 
sanctity  of  the  priest,  even  when  allowed  to  be  fault- 
less, could  not  recommend  itself  as  exemplary;  or  it 
was  exemplary  only  within  the  precincts  of  the  temple. 
This  holiness  was  symbolical  rather  than  positive  ;  and 
it  conferred  upon  its  possessors  a  distinction  neither 
envied  nor  sought  after.  As  the  young  and  emulous 
Greek  w^ould  far  rather  have  shone  in  glittering  arms 
and  armour  than  clothe  himself,  if  he  could,  in  the 
twinkling  splendour  of  the  stars,  so  would  he  choose 
any  praise  sooner  than  covet  the  mortifying  purity  of 
the  ministers  of  heaven. 

Sacerdotal  power  has  ordinarily  hinged  upon  two 
functions  of  interpretation — namely,  that  of  sacred 
books,  and  that  of  futurity.  But  ihe  Greeks  had  no 
ancient  canonical  writings ;  no  written  rule  of  belief 
and  duty.  They  were  indeed  intensely  curious  of 
futurity,  and  this  passion,  among  no  people  more 
eager  or  universal,  was  largely  provided  for  by  the 
numerous  oracular  institutions  of  the  mother  country, 
and  of  hellenic  Asia.  Yet  even  in  this  instance  the 
influence  which  miglit  have  accrued  to  the  priests  was 
much  curtailed :  first,  b3'  the  opinion  that  the  priests 
and  priestesses  of  the  oracular  temples  were  nothing 
more  than  involuntary  subjects  of  the  divine  inflation  ; 
and  secondly,  by  the  generally  divulged  secret  of  the 
corrupt  obsequiousness  of  the  oracle  to  the  will  of 
statesmen  on  special  occasions.  Much  scepticism  at- 
tempered the  popular  infatuation  on  this  subject ;  and 


ANCIENT   HIERARCHIES.  71 

the  luckless  priest,  whenever  a  tampering  with  him 
was  detected  or  supposed,  sustained  the  whole  of  the 
obloquy,  which  injustice  should  have  been  shared  by 
the  chief  who  was  the  author  of  the  sacrilege,  and  by 
the  god  who  connived  at  it. 

The  sacerdotal  order,  among  the  Greeks,  although 
thus  circumscribed  and  shut  out  from  the  possibility 
of  effecting  spiritual  usurpations,  was  neither  tram- 
pled upon,  nor  exposed  to  humiliations  and  difficul- 
ties of  that  sort  which  drives  it  to  pervert  religion  for 
base  and  selfish  purposes.  The  priests  received  a 
sufficient  maintenance  ;  and  in  a  manner  neither  pre- 
carious to  themselves,  nor  vexatious  to  the  people. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  Grecian  worship  and 
priesthood,  is,  with  some  modifications,  applicable  to 
the  Roman.  The  religion  was  substantially  the  same, 
though  more  serious  and  stern,  and  more  barbaric, 
and  far  less  fraught  with  beauty  and  poetry.  If  the 
greater  gravity  and  intentness  of  the  people,  and  the 
strength  and  depth  of  their  passions,  might  seem  to 
render  them  more  fit  subjects  of  ghostly  influence  than 
were  the  Greeks,  yet  the  greater  energy  of  the  race, 
their  eminent  good  sense,  and  constant  attachment  to 
certain  fixed  principles  of  political  expediency,  fully 
counterpoised  any  dispositions  which  the  ministers  of 
religion  might  have  turned  to  their  advantage.  It 
was  in  conformity  with  the  spirit  of  the  political  and 
military  economy  of  the  Roman  state,  that  the  chief 
magistrate  was  head  of  the  Church  (if  we  may  borrow 
the  phrase.)  This  arrangement  effectively  excludes 
spiritual  despotism ;  at  least  in  its  indefinite  advances, 
if  not  always  in  its  single  proceedings. 

Yet  it  must  be  vain  to  look  for  an  auspicious  sa- 
cerdotal institute  where  there  are  few  elements  of 
truth  in  the  religion  of  a  people;  on  the  other  hand, 
if  in  any  quarter  we  meet  with  such  an  institute,  we 
ought  to  hold  its  existence  as  a  strong  presumptive 


72  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

proof  of  the  excellence  and  genuineness  of  the  reli- 
gion. A  full  exhibition,  in  all  its  bearings,  of  the 
Mosaic  hierarchy,  and  a  fair  comparison  of  it  with 
the  several  contemporary  religious  polities  of  the  na- 
tions, would  yield  an  argument  in  favour  of  the  divine 
legation  of  the  Jewish  legislator,  not  easily  over- 
thrown. Such  an  argument,  however,  is  not  to  be 
condensed  within  a  narrow  compass.  Our  present 
subject  demands  only  a  brief  notice  of  some  main 
particulars. 

The  fallacious  and  absurd  use  that  has  been  made 
of  the  instance  of  the  Jewish  hierarchy  in  the  contro- 
versy on  church  government,  stands  in  the  way  of  a 
legitimate  and  profitable  appeal  to  it.  We  must  en- 
deavour to  forget,  as  well  the  unsound  argument  of 
the  upholders  of  high  clerical  pretensions,  as  the  un- 
sound reply  to  that  argument,  while  we  contemplate 
what  surely  must  at  all  times  be  an  edifying  object — 
namely,  a  national  religious  polity,  springing  direct 
from  Infinite  wisdom  and  beneficence.  Grant  that  an 
institution,  established  for  a  special  purpose,  and  in  a 
particular  country,  must  not  be  taken  as  a  model  for 
analogous  institutions  in  other  ages  and  countries ; 
yet,  assuredly,  a  divinely  originated  economy  must  be 
held  to  involve,  at  the  least,  some  few  universal  prin- 
ciples, convertible,  with  due  modification,  to  other  in- 
stances. It  will  be  strange  indeed,  if  a  combination 
of  religious  and  secular  elements,  moulded  by  the 
very  hand  of  God,  should  be  found  to  yield  to  our 
modern  eyes  no  instruction,  or  none  of  practical  im- 
port. Far  from  admitting  so  irreverent  a  supposition, 
we  should  boldly  advance  the  principle  that,  the  Mo- 
saic sacerdotal  institute,  stripp'ed  of  whatever  was 
special  and  temporary,  and  reduced  to  its  pure  ideal, 
or  abstract  value,  would  furnish  the  best  possible 
groundwork  of  a  national  religious  polity  ;  and  it 
may  readily  be  shown,  that  no  permanent  or  univer- 


THE   JEWISH    CHURCH    POLITY.  73 

sal  rule  of  the  Christian  dispensation  prohibits  the  use 
it  might  seem  expedient  to  make  of  such  a  pattern. 

It  is  not  easy  to  form  an  adequate  conception  of 
the  happy  aspect  and  actual  beneficial  operation  of 
the  Mosaic  sacerdotal  institute.  In  truth,  all  our  no- 
tions of  the  Jewish  commonwealth  are  received  under 
a  disadvantage,  from  the  circumstance  of  their  reach- 
ing us  through  the  channel  of  inspired  history.  The 
inflexible  integrity  of  the  record,  and  its  comminative 
intention,  throws  a  dark  colour  over  the  general 
scene.  If  we  knew  nothing  more  of  a  man  than  what 
we  might  gather  from  the  lips  of  his  severe  friend  and 
admonitor,  we  might  think  some  of  the  most  virtuous 
of  mankind  to  be  the  most  faulty  and  unamiable.  In 
reading  the  history  of  other  nations,  we  see  the  things 
of  the  world  in  the  world's  light;  but  Jewish  affairs 
we  look  at  in  the  light  of  heaven  ;  and  what  otherwise 
might  appear  fair,  stands  forward  only  as  reprehen- 
sible. 

Not  one  of  the  Jewish  w^riters,  whether  historian  or 
prophet,  is  the  eulogist  of  his  nation,  or  speaks  of 
Israel  as  the  Greeks  of  Greece,  or  the  Romans  of 
Rome.  How  different  would  be  our  impressions  of 
the  ancient  people  of  Palestine,  if  some  candid  Hero- 
dotus had  left  us  a  description  of  them,  such  as  they 
must  have  appeared  to  a  stranger  in  the  bright  era 
of  their  history,  and  when  compared  with  their  imme- 
diate neighbours.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that,  for  diffused  enjoyment  and  personal  liberty,  for 
elevation  of  sentiment,  and  purity  of  manners,  no 
contemporary  nation  could  offer  any  such  spectacle 
of  popular  felicity. 

The  extreme  brevity  of  the  inspired  historians, 
and  the  prominence  given  by  them  to  single  incidents, 
operate  to  deprive  us  of  what  might  be  called  our 
chronological  consciousness ;  and  we  forget  that, 
while  running  over  a  few  chapters,  we  have  traversed 
ages,  and  have  leaped  periods  exceeding  the  duration 


74  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

of  some  mighty  empires.  Certain  seasons  of  calamity 
excepted,  the  Jewish  commonwealth  rested  on  the 
soil,  and  diffused  among  a  numerous  people  a  large 
measure  of  such  felicity  as  earth  admits  of,  during  a 
much  longer  track  of  time  than  has  yet  been  granted 
to  British  greatness  ;  and  longer  than  can  be  claimed 
for  the  splendour  of  Grecian  liberties  and  arts ;  and 
longer  than  was  allowed  to  the  foreign  power  of 
Rome.  During  at  least  seven  hundred  years,  Pales- 
tine was  probably  richer  in  human  happiness  than 
any  other  spot  upon  earth  has  ever  been. 

Considered  in  their  secular  aspect,  the  character- 
istic principle  of  the  Mosaic  Institutions  was  the  pri- 
vate good  of  the  people.  Whatever  the  form  of  the 
polity  might  be,  the  spirit  of  it  was,  in  the  best  sense, 
popular  ;  since  the  security,  the  competence,  and  the 
personal  dignity,  and  the  enjoyments  of  every  son  of 
Abraham  was  the  ruling  intention  of  every  enactment. 
Redeemed  from  the  furnaces  of  Egypt,  and  led  into 
a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  the  economy  of 
social  life  was  so  constructed,  as  to  yield  the  greatest 
possible  amount  of  plenty  and  pleasure  to  every  citi- 
zen. Every  man  who  had  sprung  from  the  loins  of 
Abraham  was  noble;  and  the  forfeiture  of  that  patri- 
mony which  enabled  him  to  support  the  simple  ho- 
nours of  his  birth  was  a  desperate  calamity,  guarded 
against  by  extraordinary  provisions.  The  motto  of 
the  commonwealth  was — "  Every  man  under  his  vine, 
and  under  his  fig-tree  ;  none  daring  to  makfe  him 
afraid."  To  eat  the  fat  of  the  land,  to  make  his  heart 
merry  with  the  wine,  and  to  render  praise  to  God,  du- 
ty to  the  priest,  and  a  generous  portion  to  the  father- 
less, the  widow,  and  the  stranger,  was  the  precept  and 
privilege  of  all. 

Neither  national  aggrandizement,  or  conquest  and 
foreign  empire,  nor  the  accumulation  of  wealth  by 
trade,  nor  the  cultivation  of  arts  and  philosophy,  was 
aimed  at  in  the  Jewish  code  ;  but  rather  the  tranquil 


THE  JEWISH   CHURCH   POLITY.  75 

happiness  and  the  domestic  integrity  of  every  Israeli- 
tish  home.  The  Law  was  a  blessing  for  the  basket 
and  the  store,  for  the  bed  and  the  table.  God's  po- 
lity was  like  God's  world,  in  the  constitution  of  which 
the  greatest  possible  enjoyment  of  the  greatest  possi- 
ble number  is  the  sovereign  rule.  "  Come  and  sit  at 
my  table,  and  taste  my  dainties,"  was  the  invitation 
of  Jehovah  to  the  people  of  his  choice;  and  if  they 
had  not  perversely  turned  aside  to  snatch  poisons 
from  the  tables  of  demons,  no  happiness  would  have 
been  comparable  to  theirs. 

In  harmony  with  this  scheme  of  beneficence,  the 
sacerdotal  institute  had  altogether  a  benign  aspect 
toward  the  people.  The  priests,  themselves  secured 
of  the  competency,  and  curtailed  of  no  natural  en- 
joyment, had  no  motive,  either  for  grudging  the  hap- 
piness of  others,  or  for  trenching  upon  the  common 
liberties  :  on  the  contrary,  their  own  wealth  and  ease 
expressed,  and  flowed  from,  the  prosperity  of  the 
state.  Among  the  Asiatic  hierarchies,  that  of  the 
Jews  occupied  a  middle  ground;  for  it  was  neither 
predominant  nor  degraded  :  the  nation  did  not  exist 
for  the  priests;  nor  were  the  priests  the  obsequious 
dependents,  either  of  the  monarch  or  the  people. 

In  considering  the  position  and  influence  of  the 
sacerdotal  order  in  the  Hebrew  polity,  we  have,  in 
the  first  place,  to  take  notice  of  the  character  of  the 
religion  intrusted  to  its  care,  which  aflbrded  fewer 
means  of  sustaining  ghostly  power  than  perhaps  any 
other  system,  ancient  or  modern.  No  scheme  of  be- 
lief and  worship  has  drawn  so  little  upon  the  unde- 
fined terrors  of  the  invisible  world  ;  none  has  said  less 
of  futurity — an  extra-mundane  futurity.  The  views 
it  opens,  the  motives  it  urges,  the  hopes  it  awakens, 
the  fears  it  instils,  are  all  terrestrial  and  temporary. 
Whatever  the  Jewish  nation  might  surmise  or  know 
concerning  a  future  life,  and  an  unseen  econom}^, 
their  laws  and  their  worship  did  not  rest  upon  any 


76  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

such  foundation  ;  and  their  priests,  as  such,  were  not 
empowered  to  wield  the  terrible  weapons  of  spiritual 
excitement.  The  priests  did  not  stand  before  the 
people  as  the  privileged  holders  of  impenetrable  and 
portentous  mysteries,  of  which  it  was  at  their  discre- 
tion to  deal  out  a  portion  or  not.  The  clergy  pos- 
sessed no  immeasurable  superiority  of  knowledge  over 
the  laity:  what  the  priests  knew,  the  people  might 
know,  and  ought  to  know  from  the  priest.  The  one 
party  did  not  grasp  the  immortal  destinies  of  the 
other.  The  priest  might  adjudge  to  death,  but  not 
to  perdition  ;  and  to  death  only  in  cases  well  defined. 

Moses  spoke  of  the  Almighty  as  the  Creator  and 
Governor  of  the  visible  world  ;  as  the  Giver  of  all 
good  things;  as  the  righteous  administrator  of  hu- 
man affairs,  immediately  rewarding  those  who  fear 
Him  and  keep  his  commandments,  and  as  punishing 
the  refractory,  either  on  the  spot,  or  in  the  persons  of 
their  posterity.  Every  thing  was  marked  out,  cir- 
cumscribed, and  fixed  in  their  theology  ;  and  there- 
fore it  was  an  unfit  material  of  spiritual  despotism. 
Nor  should  we  fail  to  notice  the  singular  fact,  that 
the  prescience  of  future  mundane  events,  a  pretence 
to  which  has.  been  so  mighty  an  engine  of  priestly 
power,  was  (so  far  as  granted  at  all)  conveyed 
through  the  instrumentality  of  an  extra-sacerdotal 
class,  namely,  that  of  the  prophets,  who  were  indis- 
criminately of  every  tribe,  and  who,  even  when  of 
Levitical  origin,  derived  none  of  their  special  autho- 
rity from  the  hands  of  the  superiors  of  their  own 
order. 

On  insufficient  grounds,  and  without  staying  to 
consider  actual  facts,  divines  have  affirmed,  what  in- 
fidels have  eagerly  caught  at,  and  are  still  repeating 
now  the  hundredth  time — namely,  that  the  religion 
of  the  Jews  was  severe  and  gloomy.  Severe  it  could 
not  be,  when  temporal  felicity  was  constantly  held  up 
before  the  people  as  their  portion,  and  as  the  imme- 


THE   JEWISH    CHURCH    POLITY.  77 

diate  fruit  of  obedience.  Severe  it  was  not,  while 
the  divine  placability  was  proclaimed  in  every  rite, 
and  while  propitiation  was  the  grand  purpose  of  all 
worship.  Gloomy  it  could  not  be,  abstaining  as  it 
did  from  the  terrors  of  the  unseen  world  :  yes,  but  it 
was  gloomy,  as' the  silvery  dawn  is  gloomy  when  we 
think  of  its  shadows  in  comparison  with  the  splen- 
dours of  noon. 

Never  has  there  been  a  religion,  ancient  or  mo- 
dern, under  which  a  man  might  on  easier  terms  live 
piously  and  happily.  No  religion  has  afforded  so 
few  excitements  to  vague  despondency.  If  it  has 
been  a  not  infrequent  case  for  melancholic  minds  to 
be  seized  with  the  frenzy  of  religious  despair,  we 
doubt  if  ever  such  an  instance  occurred  under  primi- 
tive Judaism.  It  was  only  when  he  entertained  the 
horror-fraught  demonology  of  the  Canaanitish  tribes, 
that  the  son  of  Abraham  could  become  the  victim 
of  moody  terrors.  This  Judaism  then  was  not  the 
system  on  which  to  build  spiritual  despotism. 

Nor  did  the  national  temperament  favour  any  such 
usurpations.  If  we  call  the  Jews — Orientals,  we 
must  first  exclude  from  the  term  the  notions  usually 
attached  to  it,  of  indolent  laxity,  or  of  a  cringing 
servility  of  disposition.  In  reading  the  historical 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  commencing  with  the 
book  of  Judges,  one  gathers  from  the  whole  an  im- 
pression of  a  people  high  spirited  and  impassioned  ; 
yet  sedate  and  firm ;  dignified  in  manners,  vigorous 
in  action,  steady  in  purpose,  rich  in  axiomatic  good 
sense,  and  terse  in  expression  ;  and  especially  warm 
and  true  in  domestic  sentiment,  and  keen  in  every 
feeling  of  honour.  They  took  to  themselves  a  mo- 
narchical government;  but  their  usages  were  demo- 
cratic; they  bore  the  burden  of  kingly  rule,  till  it 
reached  a  galling  weight,  and  then  the  cry  was  al- 
ways, "To  your  tents,  O  Israel."  The  antebaby- 
7 


78  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

lonish  Jews  were  not  the  plastic  stuff  an  ambitious 
hierarch  would  have  chosen  to  work  upon. 

The  position  of  the  Jewish  priesthood  in  relation 
to  the  community,  and  in  relation  to  the  civil  autho- 
I'ity,  deserves  especial  regard. 

A  main  circumstance  to  be  set  off,  in  taking  ac- 
count of  the  duties,  dignities,  political  influence,  and 
revenues,  of  the  Levitical  tribe,  is  that  combination 
of  functions,  civil  and  sacred,  which  they  sustained. 
The  priests  and  Levites  were  not  ministers  of  religion 
merely.  Besides  discharging  the  various  and  very 
laborious  services  of  public  worship,  and  besides  im- 
parting religious  instruction  to  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple;  the  sacerdotal,  and  semi-sacerdotal  orders,  per- 
formed the  duty  of  an  armed  force,  or  garrison  of  the 
temple,  and  of  a  body-guard  to  the  monarch.  Upon 
them  also,  or  upon  them  chiefly,  devolved  the  admi- 
nistration and  interpretation  of  civil  and  criminal 
law,  and  the  business  of  courts  of  justice.  More- 
over, as  it  seems,  the  priests  were  originally  the  pro- 
fessors of  medicine,  and,  from  a  natural  extejision  of 
the  delicate  oflices  intrusted  to  them  in  several  medico- 
judicial  instances,  were  compelled  to  acquire  a  kind 
of  knowledge  which  none  can  possess  and  remain 
idle.  The  priests  too,  were  the  only  depositaries  of 
general  learning,  and  the  copiers  of  books.  Now, 
if  the  exercise  of  so  man}^  functions  might  appear  to 
place  vast  power  in  the  hands  of  a  single  order,  it 
will  be  found,  in  the  actual  working  of  the  social 
machine,  that  this  very  multiplicity  of  labours,  and 
this  intimate  blending  of  the  priests  with  the  people, 
in  all  the  occasions  of  common  life,  operates  much 
more  to  break  down  and  moderate,  than  to  build  up 
and  aggravate  ghostly  tyranny.  The  common  peo- 
ple have  never  been  so  thoroughly  enslaved  by  any 
priests  as  by  those  who  affected  an  utter  ignorance 
of  all  mundane  affairs,  and  who  spent,  or  professed 
to  spend,  their  days  and   nights  in  seraphic  abstrac- 


THE   JEWISH    HIERARCHY.  79 

tion.  The  people  should  not  then  look  with  too 
much  jealousy  at  those  engagements  which  make 
their  ministers  one  with  themselves,  and  which  with- 
draw them  a  little  from  the  closet  and  the  conclave. 

In  calculating,  therefore,  the  proportion  borne  by 
the  priests  and  Levites  to  the  community,  or  the 
amount  of  their  revenues,  we  must  not  think  of  either 
as  we  should  if  nothing  more  had  been  required  of 
them  than  to  give  attendance  at  the  altar.  Take 
what  example  we  please,  of  a  civilized  community, 
and  reckon  all  the  learned  professions  in  a  mass,  not 
omitting  the  ministers  of  state,  and  the  guards  of  the 
palace,  and  we  shall  find  the  number  to  exceed,  in 
proportion,  that  of  the  Levitical  tribe ;  and  the  ag- 
gregate revenues  and  salaries  of  all  these  professions, 
vastly  to  surpass  those  of  the  Jewish  clergy.  The 
entire  instance  fails  then  in  applicability  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  any  modern  people.  Nothing  can  be 
more  preposterous  than  the  argumentative  use  that 
has  so  often  been  made  of  the  Mosaic  institutions,  in 
this  particular.  Let  a  tenth  of  the  rents  and  income 
of  any  community  be  taken,  and  shared  among  all 
the  professions,  the  clergy  taking  only  their  propor- 
tion of  this  tithe,  and  then  the  procedure  will  bear 
some  analogy  to  the  Jewish  tithe  system. 

No  argumentative  reference,  moreover,  to  the  Mo- 
saic sacerdotal  institute  can  fairly  be  made,  until 
after  we  have  set  off  the  capital  circumstance  that 
the  priesthood  was  hereditary,  and  therefore  irre- 
spective of  personal  qualities  or  qualifications  (mere 
physical  integrity  excepted.)  None  would  pretend 
that,  in  the  case  of  the  Christian  ministry,  individual 
fitness  for  the  office,  together  with  all  mental  and 
moral  dispositions,  should  be  so  merged  as  is  implied 
in  adapting  the  hereditary  principle  to  the  clerical 
order.  This  circumstance  indicates  some  essential 
dissimilarity  between  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
schemes ;  and   should  make  us  cautious  in  carrying 


80  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM- 

inferences  from  the  one  economy  to  the  other.  Ne- 
vertheless this  dissimilarity  must  not  be  thought  of 
as  if  it  involved  a  total  want  of  analogy  ;  for  we 
ought  to  recollect  that,  as  a  wide  circuit  of  various 
employments  devolved  upon  the  Levitical  tribe,  and 
the  Aaronic  family,  there  would  naturally  take  place 
an  allotment  or  distribution  of  offices,  according  to 
the  talents  and  dispositions  of  individuals ;  the  more 
intellectual  and  sedate  assuming  to  themselves  the 
duties  of  religious  teachers,  while  the  more  active 
betook  themselves  to  secular  employments.  To  a 
certain  extent,  therefore,  it  would  still  be  true  that 
the  ministers  of  religion  would  be  such,  not  merely 
by  accident  of  birth,  but  by  fitness  of  talent  and 
temper  ;  though  certainly  not  in  any  case  by  popular 
election. 

Allowance  made  for  the  two  above-named  pecu- 
liarities of  the  Jewish  priesthood,  the  following  main 
conditions  attaching  to  it  seem  to  deserve  attention. — 

The  first  of  these  conditions  is  the  important  one^ 
that,  under  this  divine  economy  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion, as  related  to  the  people  for  whom  they  were 
to  act  on  the  part  of  God,  and  upon  whom  they  were 
to  enforce  the  law,  stood  absolutely  independent  of 
popular  will  and  caprice,  as  well  in  regard  to  pecu- 
niary support,  as  to  appointment  and  removal.  If 
there  be  something  that  is  special  and  accidental  in 
this  arrangement,  there  is  surely  something  of  abstract 
principle  in  it  also.  The  original  justice  of  the  tithe 
of  produce,  as  an  equivalent  for  a  twelfth  share  of 
the  land  due  to  the  tribe  of  Levi,  does  not  affect  the 
sort  of  inference  which  we  deem  it  warrantable  to  draw 
from  the  fact.  Used  as  a  rule  of  proportion,  applicable 
to  the  clergy  in  Christian  countries,  nothing  (as  we 
have  already  said)  can  be  more  absurd.  This  nugatory 
inference  excluded,  we  yet  seem  borne  out  in  assuming 
that  the  abstract  principle  of  a  national  establishment, 


THE  JEWISH   HIERARCHY.  81 

involving  a  legal  and  defined  provision  for  the  ministers 
of  religion,  and  securing  also  their  independence  of  po- 
pular caprice,  must  not  be  spoken  of  as  essentially 
immoral,  or  as  universally  inexpedient,  and  incompa- 
tible with  those  relative  sentiments  that  should  con- 
nect the  pastor  and  his  flock.  When  the  difficulties 
that  attend  the  general  question  of  a  provision  for 
the  clergy  are  felt,  what  can  be  more  natural  on  the 
part  of  religious  minds,  than  to  turn  toward  a  hea- 
ven-descended economy  ;  and  if  restrained  by  pecu- 
liar considerations  from  a  close  imitation  of  this  pat- 
tern, it  will  be  strange  indeed  if  we  do  not  grant  it 
to  be  entitled  to  the  smallest  deference,  while  employ- 
ed in  working  the  abstract  theorem  of  a  church  polity. 
But  it  may  be  predicted  that  this  divine  example  will 
acquire  a  much  higher  authority  than  hitherto  it  has 
possessed,  when,  on  the  one  hand,  it  shall  cease  to 
be  any  more  distorted  and  abused  in  vindication  of 
tithes,  and  of  certain  despotic  church  maxims;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  when  the  conceit  which  has  been 
entertained,  that  the  Christian  system  stands  posi- 
tively opposed  to  any  such  arrangement,  shall  be  dis- 
sipated. It  is  surely  a  singular  inconsistency  on  the 
part  of  some  who,  while  sternly  affirming  the  autho- 
rity of  Mosaic  institutions  in  certain  points,  abso- 
lutely refuse  permission  to  make  any  sort  of  use  of  the 
great  principle  of  the  Mosaic  economy  in  relation  to 
the  ministers  of  religion.  In  all  points  ought  we  not 
alike  to  drop  what  is  special  in  the  Jewish  polity,  and 
to  respect,  and  if  practicable,  to  imitate,  what  ap- 
pears to  spring  from  some  universal  axiom  f 

Secondly.  The  independence  and  the  compe- 
tence of  the  Jewish  priesthood  being  thus  secured  by 
an  endowment  of  lands  and  towns,  and  by  imposts, 
precisely  defined,  scope  was  yet  given  to  the  sponta- 
neous afiection  of  the  people  toward  their  teachers, 
and  to  their  zeal  also  on  special  occasions,  where  no 
danger  was  to  be  expected,  and  where  public  spirit 

7* 


82  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

was  likely  to  meet  the  demand  made  upon  it.  There 
was  an  annual  gratuity  to  the  priest,  left  to  the  libe- 
rality of  the  people  ;  and  such  as  might  give  excite- 
ment to  pious  regard  toward  them,  and  open  the  way 
for  reciprocal  feelings  on  the  part  of  the  clergy.  But 
beside  this,  it  was  the  usage  of  the  Jewish  Church, 
following  the  example  first  set  by  Moses,  to  appeal 
to  the  religious  generosity  of  the  nation  whenever 
the  house  of  God  needed  extensive  repairs,  or  was  to 
be  re-edified.  Without  some  such  call  upon  the  sen- 
timents of  devout  patriotism,  a  people  can  hardly  fail 
to  become  indifferent  to  religion,  and  to  its  public  of- 
fices, which  they  do  not  feel  to  be  in  any  active  sense 
their  own.  We  may  well  observe,  in  the  instance  be- 
fore us,  the  just  appreciation  it  imphes  of  the  ordinary 
impulses  of  human  nature.  When  an  object  of  visi- 
ble importance  and  happy  aspect  can  be  suddenly 
presented  to  the  public  mind,  there  is  no  need  to  be 
anxious  for  the  result.  A  generous  enthusiasm  is 
sure  to  be  enkindled,  and  will  probably  overpass 
the  necessities  of  the  occasion.  So  it  was  in  repeated 
instances  with  the  Jewish  people.  The  erection  or 
repair  of  sacred  structures  might,  almost  always,  be 
confidently  thrown  upon  voluntary  contributions. 
The  permanent  support  of  those  M'ho  are  to  minister 
within  them  involves  greater  difficulties. 

Thirdly.  A  circumstance  already  adverted  to  is  of 
so  much  importance  as  to  demand  more  explicit  men- 
tion :  we  mean  that  counterpoise  of  church  influence 
which  sprung  from  the  operation  of  the  Prophetic 
Function.  It  is  the  exclusive  possession  and  the  ir- 
responsible control  of  all  kinds  of  spiritual  power 
which  enables  a  hierarchy  to  digest  its  plans  of  en- 
croachment, and  to  achieve  gradual  usurpations.  No 
such  exclusive  domination  was  permitted  to  the  Jew- 
ish clergy.  An  unfailing  succession  of  inspired  men, 
sometimes  members  of  the  Aaronic  house,  but  more 
often  not,  stood  up  as  the  immediate  ministers  of  Je- 


THE  JEWISH   HIERARCHY.  83 

liovah,  dealing  rebuke,  with  iiigh  intrepidity,  on  all 
sides ;  and  assailing  the  vices  or  the  remissness,  as 
well  of  the  priests,  as  of  the  princes,  or  the  sovereign. 
The  high-priest  could  never  call  himself  the  viCAR 
OF  God,  or  the  ultimate  authority,  from  whose  deci- 
sions there  could  be  no  appeal.     Whatever  scheme 
of  aggrandizement  for  his  order  an  ambitious  hierarch 
might  meditate,   he  could  never  for  a  moment  secure 
himself  against  the  thundering  reproof  of  some  extra- 
sacerdotal  voice,  the  pealing  of  which   must    have 
shattered  his  devices.     This  counterpoise,  or  rather 
corrective,  forming  as  it  did  a  permanent  provision  in 
the  Jewish  church  polity,  deserves  to   be  especially 
noticed  in  its  relation  to  the  hereditary  tenure  of  the 
pontifical  dignit3\     Into  what  condition,  short  of  an 
intolerable  spiritual  despotism,  could  any  community 
fall,  among  whom  there  existed  an  hereditary  ponti- 
ficate, not  checked  in  some  very  efficacious  manner  ? 
Or  how  much  power  would  be  left  to  the  civil  magis- 
trate who  should  sway  his  sceptre  under  the  shade  of 
an  inherited  prelacy  ?     A  pope,  the  lineal  descend- 
ant of  popes,  and  the  progenitor  of  popes,  would  be  a 
despot  such  as  the  world  has   never  seen.     In  this 
sense  it  was  well  for  Europe  that  the  Romish  clergy 
condemned  themselves  to  celibacy.     It  is  worthy  of 
remark,  that  soon  after  the  prophetic  function  failed 
among  the  Jews,  the  pontifical  dignity  ceased  to  de- 
scend from  father  to  son ;  or  even  to  be  held  for  life. 
Lastly,  we  have  to  take  account  of  that  balance  of 
power,    and    that   reciprocal    corrective    influence, 
vvhich   subsisted    between    the    priesthood    and    the 
monarchy,  in  the  Jewish  state  ;  each  exerting  over 
the  other  a  control,   beneficial  to  each,  and  to  the 
community.     Beside  their  proper  spiritual  authority 
with   the   people,  which   naturally  tempered  the  civil 
and  military  power,  the  priests  and  Levites  were  the 
aristocracy — the  barons  and  the  knights  of  the  com- 
monwealth.    It  was  they  who  had  an  interest  in  the 


84  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

institutions  of  the  country  of  a  definite  sort,  and 
which  impelled  them  to  resist  innovations  and  en- 
croachments, whether  attempted  by  the  people  or  the 
monarch.  A  privileged  order,  accustomed  to  meet 
in  convocation,  becomes  inevitably,  whatever  its  par- 
ticular functions  may  be,  the  guardian  of  the  state, 
and  the  vigilant  observer  of  all  changes.  Several 
actual  instances  are  recorded,  and  others  no  doubt 
occurred,  in  which  the  constancy  and  patriotism  of 
the  priests  saved  the  state,  and  barred  the  way  of  a 
tyrant. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  sacerdotal  order  itself 
stood  in  awe  of  the  monarch  ;  and  on  many  remark- 
able occasions,  received  from  his  hand  a  vigorous 
treatment,  necessary,  and  highly  beneficial.  The 
lapse  of  time  never  fails  to  break  down  the  purity 
and  integrity  of  a  sacerdotal  body.  Secular  motives 
insensibly  supplant  high  principles  ;  the  earthly  pre- 
vails over  the  heavenly  element.  But  a  hierarchy 
never  reforms  itself; — no  corporation  regenerates  by 
spontaneous  energy ;  it  must  be  brought  back  to 
duty  and  virtue  by  a  hand  from  without.  No  pro- 
vision of  the  Mosaic  law  had  authorized  this  sort  of 
reform;  yet  it  had  become  the  salutary  usage  of  the 
state  for  strong-minded  and  pious  sovereigns  to  do 
for  the  Church,  what  the  Church  will  not  do  for  her- 
self, and  what  the  people  either  do  not  care  to  at- 
tempt, or  have  no  means  of  eflecting.  A  main  cha- 
racteristic of  Jewish  history  is  Church  Reform, 
again  and  again  brought  about  by  the  civil  power. 
And  never  are  such  reforms  recorded  otherwise  than 
in  terms  of  commendation  ;  never  are  they  reservedly 
mentioned,  as  happy,  but  illicit  intrusions  upon  things 
sacred.  The  inspired  writers  do  not  seem  to  have 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  transcendent  doctrine, 
that  corruptions  and  abuses  are  sacred,  or  can  ever 
deserve  reverence. 

Why  the  examples  of  David,  Asa,  Jehoshaphat, 


THE  JEWISH  HIERARCHY.  85 

Hezekiah,  and  Josiah,  should  not  be  regarded  as 
imitable,  as  well  as  admirable,  it  is  not  easy  to  say. 
Our  notions  of  wisdom  and  public  virtue  must  surely 
be  distorted  when  we  deny  that  a  monarch,  alive  to 
the  highest  interests  of  the  state,  and  to  the  welfare 
of  his  people,  acts  laudably  when  he  directs  the  public 
force  against  glaring  church  abuses,  and  calls  upon 
the  ministers  of  religion,  in  a  tone  they  dare  not 
slight,  to  amend  their  ways,  to  forsake  covetous- 
ness,  and  to  tend  their  flocks.  Except  for  the  piety 
and  zeal  of  several  kingly  reformers,  the  Mosaic  in- 
stitutions, and  with  them  the  knowledge  and  worship 
of  Jehovah,  would  in  an  early  age  have  utterly  dis- 
appeared. 

Whatever  practical  use  we  may  choose  to  make  of 
this  ancient  model  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  we  surely 
cannot  refuse  it  our  admiration.  Or  if  its  actual 
arrangements  be  adjudged  altogether  inapplicable 
to  Christian  countries  in  modern  times,  at  least  those 
general  axioms  upon  which  it  was  reared  must  de- 
serve regard ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  admit  the 
divine  origination  of  this  scheme,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  affirm  that  its  fundamental  principles  are  out 
of  harmony  with  human  nature,  and  not  in  any  sense 
capable  of  extension  from  one  people  and  age  to 
another.  What  then  were  these  rudiments  of  the 
Jewish  church  polity  f  We  assume  that  they  may 
be  reduced  to  the  following  articles,  namely — The 
independence  of  the  priests  in  relation  to  the  people; 
— space  and  excitement  for  the  sentiment  of  religious 
public  spirit; — a  partition  of  religious  influence  be- 
tween the  hierarchy  and  some  other  party ;  or,  as 
interpreted  into  a  modern  sense,  a  perfect  liberty  of 
animadversion  upon  clerical  conduct,  exercised  by 
persons  not  of  the  clerical  order  ; —  an  efl^ective  inde- 
pendence of  the  clergy  in  relation  to  the  civil 
power  ; — and  lastly,  a  reciprocal  authority  in  the 
magistrate,  exercised  over  the  Church  on  occasions 
of  manifest  necessity.     We  are  bold  to  conjectqre 


86  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

ihat  an  ecclesiastical  polity  founded  upon  these  con- 
ditions would  at  once  secure  a  just  and  necessary 
authority  to  the  ministers  of  religion,  and  preclude 
spiritual  usurpations;  that  it  would  contain  within 
itself  the  springs  of  periodic  renovation,  without 
which  no  system,  how  perfect  soever  in  its  original 
scheme,  can  float  down  the  current  of  time  ;  and 
that  it  would  exert  an  effective  and  salutary  influence, 
not  merely  like  our  present  systems,  over  portions  of 
the  community  ;  but  over  the  whole  ;  and  would  im- 
part a  religious  character  to  public  acts,  both  of  the 
legislature  and  the  administration. 

During  the  ages  that  elapsed  between  the  building 
of  the  second  temple  and  its  demolition,  every  thing 
in  the  Jewish  state  had  shifted  position.  Six  hun- 
dred years  is  a  period  that  imparts  a  new  character 
to  all  but  the  most  inert  masses.  Judaism  was  not 
an  inert  mass,  like  the  vast  despotisms  of  Asia,  nor 
did  even  the  sanction  of  the  Divine  authority  pre- 
serve it  from  change.  Whatever  has  life  has  eras 
and  evolutions.  Even  Christianity  has  exhibited, 
and  will  probably  yet  exhibit,  this  symptom  of 
vitality. 

Passing  over  at  a  leap  the  gradual  induction  of 
political,  ecclesiastical,  and  moral  changes,  we  find 
firmly  established  among  the  Jews,  in  ihe  time  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles,  what  well  deserves  the  appel- 
lation of  spiritual  despotism.  The  common  people 
superstitious,  fanatical,  scrupulous,  licentious,  were 
held  in  vilifying  subservience  to  the  arrogance,  the 
rapacity,  the  factious  interests,  and  the  whims  of 
their  religious  masters.  The  very  people  who  pre- 
posterously affirm  that  they  had  "  never  been  in  bon- 
dage to  any  man,"  were,  at  that  moment,  bowing 
down  under  the  chains  of  a  foreign  domination,  and 
the  yoke  of  a  ghostly  tyranny. 

Besides  other  evidences  of  the  fact,  which  are 
abundant,  we  possess,  on  this  point,  the  most  explicit 


THE  JEWISH   HIERARCHY.  87 

and  unimpeachable  testimony — that  of  our  Lord. 
His  vehement  arraignment  of  the  Jewish  rulers  con- 
veys the  very  idea  of  spiritual  despotism.  The  be- 
nign law  of  God  was  set  aside  by  vain  superstitions 
and  profligate  expositions  : — a  boundless  homage  was 
claimed  from  the  populace  by  their  teachers  ;  the  ra- 
pacity and  debauchery  of  the  ministers  of  religion 
were  cloaked  by  frivolous  austerities :  intolerable 
burdens  were  imposed  upon  the  people,  and  not 
shared  by  the  imposers;  and  a  state  of  fanatical  ex- 
citement was  kept  up  throughout  the  community, 
such  as  placed  a  formidable  force  at  the  command  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  faction* .  Each  of  these  particulars 
is  distinctly  affirmed,  or  is  necessarily  implied,  in  our 
Lord's  impeachment  of  the  scribes,  lawyers,  and 
priests ;  nor  has  ever  a  public  reprover  employed 
language  more  stern  and  reprobative.  The  Divine 
Speaker,  in  these  instances,  does  not  invite  the  har- 
dened Pharisee  to  repentance  ;  but  consigns  him  to 
perdition  :  instead  of  that  under-tone  of  mercy  which 
pervades  always  his  addresses  to  the  profligate  multi- 
tude, we  hear  only  the  thunders  of  the  day  of  wrath. 
Well  might  it  be,  if  whoever  stands  in  the  same  place 
of  elevated  hypocrisy,  converting  the  solemnities  of 
religion  into  a  disguise  for  interested  purposes,  and 
employing  the  hand  of  heaven  as  an  instrument  of 
extortion,  would  take  a  timely  warning  from  the  ter- 
rible denunciation  pronounced  upon  these,  their  pre- 
decessors in  sacrilege. 

To  trace  the  course  of  events  which  had  conducted 
the  Jewish  people  over  so  large  an  interval  from  the 
one  condition  to  the  other,  would  lead  us  very  far. 
Briefly  we  may  notice  the  main  circumstances  that 
appear  to  have  distinguished  the  one  from  the  other. 
They  are  such  as  the  following. — 

The  ecclesiastical  and  civil  authorities,  instead  of 
being  amicably  related  and  adjusted,  one  to  the 
other,  as  parts  of  the  same  polity,  had  become  severed, 


88  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

in  consequence  of  the  subjugation  of  the  country ; 
and  not  only  severed,  but  placed  in  jealous  opposi- 
tion ;  and  each  cherishing  towards  the  odier  senti- 
ments of  profound,  though  repressed  hatred.  The 
natural  alliance  which  should  subsist  in  a  religious 
community,  between  Church  and  State,  and  whicli 
had  formerly  subsisted,  had  given  way  to  such  cor- 
respondence as  belongs  to  a  truce  between  enemies. 
The  foreign  power,  embarrassed  by  its  inabihty  to 
understand  the  principles  or  the  temper  of  the  sanc- 
timonious yet  profligate  hierarchy  it  had  to  do  with, 
and  justly  holding  in  contempt  men  who,  while  pro- 
fessing a  purer  religion  than  that  of  their  neighbours, 
surpassed  all  people  in  atrocity,  could  not  w^ish  to 
interfere  when  they  saw  the  priests  and  rabbis  spend- 
ing their  malignity  upon  the  luckless  multitude. 

On  the  other  side,  the  religious  chiefs,  liable  to 
humiliations  of  national  pride,  insufferable  if  it  had 
been  possible  to  avoid  them,  sought  the  relief  of  re- 
venge by  trampling  upon  the  people ;  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  flattered  the  worst  passions  of  the  popu- 
lace by  dealing  out  to  them  an  immoral  casuistry',  as 
the  means  of  securing  and  extending  their  own  pre- 
carious power.  The  doctors  and  priests  stood  in 
that  very  position  of  hostility  toward  the  magistrate, 
and  of  uncertain  dependance  upon  the  caprices  of 
popular  feeling  which  afterwards  corrupted  the 
ChrisUan  ministry,  and  which  has  proved  its  ill  con- 
sequence in  the  instance  of  some  modern  clerical 
bodies.  The  supremacy  of  the  chiefs  was  on  every 
side  in  danger;  and  their  behaviour  naturally  exhi- 
bited that  anxious  intolerance,  and  irritation,  which 
are  always  the  characteristics  of  unstable  power.  In 
the  primitive  times  of  Judaism,  the  sacerdotal,  the 
prophetic,  and  the  kingly  authorities,  counterpoised 
each  other ;  but  now,  the  prophetic  being  gone,  and 
the  kingly  exchanged  for  a  foreign  and  idolatrous 
power,  the  sacerdotal  body — rabbis,  priests,  lawyers, 
scribes,  were  in  all  religious  matters,  that  is  to  say, 


THE  JEWISH  HIERARCHY.  89 

in  every  affair  beneath  the  notice  of  the  Roman 
governor,  or  not  cognizable  by  him,  irresponsible 
and  absolute ;  and  free  to  convert  the  malign  reli- 
gious sentiments  of  the  nation  to  the  worst  purposes. 
A  special  circumstance  of  the  ecclesiastical  con- 
dition of  the  Jews,  at  the  time  now  spoken  of,  was 
this,  that  a  principal  portion  of  the  religious  influ- 
ence and  spiritual  magistracy  had  been  usurped,  or 
at  least  had  insensibly  passed  into  the  hands  of  an 
irregular  order  of  men,  who  exercised  an  authority 
not  known  either  to  the  Mosaic  code,  or  to  the  ante- 
babylonish  poHty.  Whether  these  men  dr^w  reve- 
nues from  the  gratuities  of  the  people  is  not  clear ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  they  enjoyed  a  large  share  of 
all  such  honours  and  powers  as  the  blind  obsequious- 
ness of  thie  vulgar  can  confer.  The  chiefs  of  the 
Pharisaic  sect — and  this  sect  commanded  the  popu- 
lar mind,  constituted  an  irresponsible  and  anomalous 
body,  the  influence  of  vvhich,  not  springing  from  any 
definite  or  legal  provisions,  was  built  up  and  main- 
tained by  the  practice  of  those  unworthy  arts  to 
which  despotic  demagogues  naturally  have  recourse. 
And  it  is  especially  to  be  noticed  that  this  self-consti- 
tuted spiritual  aristocracy  did  not  act  (as  it  might 
perhaps  have  done  beneficially)  in  the  way  of  a 
counterpoise  to  the  hierarchy  ;  but  it  seems  to  have 
purchased  its  lawless  authority  by  lending  support  to 
the  priests  in  all  their  machinations.  A  confederacy 
very  similar  in  its  elements,  and  of  which  the  people 
were  the  victims,  afterwards  took  place  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  between  the  parochial  clergy  and 
bishops,  and  the  monkish  orders.  For  although,  in 
later  ages,  and  on  particular  occasions,  the  two  par- 
ties were  openly  opposed,  there  was  a  long  period 
during  which  the  ascetic  bands  played  one  and  the 
same  game  with  the  secular  clergy,  and  both  concur- 
red in  trampling  upon  those  whom  they  were  pleased 
to  designate  tlie  herd  of  mankind.  It  has  always 
8 


90  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

been  found,  as  well  within  the  Jewish  as  the  Chris- 
tian church,  that  such  volunteers  in  the  spiritual  war- 
fare have  outstripped  the  main  body  in  every  enter- 
prise of  spoliation  and  extravagance.  Better  is  it 
always  to  be  lawfully,  than  unlawfully  oppressed. 

Again  :  the  ancient  priesthood  enforced  and  taught 
the  divine  law  in  the  vernacular  tongue,  and  could 
find  little  room  for  perverse  and  sinister  interpreta- 
tions ;  but  the  expatriation  of  the  people,  and  the 
consequent  change  in  the  national  dialect,  sealed  the 
Pentateuch  from  the  commonalty,  and  threw  into  the 
hands  of.the  learned  class  an  unlimited  power  of  in- 
terpretation. But  the  power  to  interpret  a  code  of 
law,  without  appeal,  is  essentially  a  legislative  power  ; 
and  when  combined  with  the  personal  cure  of  souls, 
it  becomes  administrative  also,  and  leaves  hardly 
an}'  thing  to  be  added  to  the  faculties  of  despotism. 
It  was  thus  that  the  Romish  hierarchy  held  the  key 
of  Scripture  ;  first,  as  locked  up  in  the  Greek  lan- 
guage, and  afterwards  in  the  Latin.  This  binding 
and  loosing  of  Moses  by  the  Rabbi,  was  probably 
the  main  means  of  the  corrupt  tyranny  of  which  the 
Jewish  nation  had  become  the  victims.  And  it  was 
thus,  afterwards,  in  the  Christian  Church.  An  irre- 
sponsible right  to  interpret,  is  a  right  to  enslave. 

Once  more  :  it  must  by  no  means  be  forgotten, 
that  the  Pharisaic  Judaism  of  the  times  of  Herod  had 
gradually  drawn  toitself,  or  had  insensibly  developed, 
several  powerful  elements  of  belief,  either  not  known 
to  the  people  in  the  pristine  ages,  or  not  commonly 
divulged  and  spoken  of.  Esoteric  doctrines  natu- 
rally work  themselves  out,  and  get  abroad  in  the 
lapse  of  time  :  what  once  was  a  mystery,  whispered  in 
sacred  groves,  comes  at  length  into  the  mouth  of  the 
populace,  and  is  heard  every  day  in  the  streets  of 
cities.  The  seeming  deficiency  in  the  Mosaic  books 
(considered  as  embodying  a  system  of  theology)  had 
been  filled  up — it  is   not    easy   to   say    from    what 


THE  JEWISH  HIERARCHY.  91 

sources ;  but  in  fact,  the  future  life,  and  future  retri- 
bution, formed  a  part  of  the  popular  creed,  and 
afforded  to  tlie  doctors  and  masters  of  the  people  an 
engine  of  terror,  of  which  they  availed  themselves  in 
their  own  manner. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  Judaism  which  Christianity 
came  in  to  displace,  differed  in  almost  every  thing  but 
names,  rites,  and  the  visible  part  of  worship,  from  the 
Judaism  whereof  David  had  gloried.  The  substance 
had  fallen  away  before  the  form  was  abrogated.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  ordinary  process  of  revolution  in  mat- 
ters of  opinion.  The  substance  moulders  slowly  and 
insensibly  ;   and  then  the  crust  drops  in  an  instant. 

To  sum  up  our  comparison  between  the  ecclesias- 
tical polity  and  religious  sentiment  characteristic  of 
the  first  temple  and  of  the  second,  we  may  say,  that 
the  religion  of  the  first  was  gracious,  happy,  and  in- 
telligible; that  of  the  second  (in  later  times)  was  su- 
perstitious, harsh,  scrupulous,  and  immoral.  The 
ministers  of  the  first  enjoyed  a  tranquil  and  well- 
defined  competency,  removing  them  at  once  from 
temptations  and  solicitudes  ;  those  of  the  second  were, 
by  the  position  in  which  they  stood,  at  once  the  in- 
terested flatterers  of  the  people  and  their  cruel  mas- 
ters. During  the  continuance  of  the  first  temple,  the 
several  powers  of  the  State  moved  on  in  amicable 
equipoise  ;  but  in  the  times  of  the  second,  the  Church 
and  the  State  had  either  no  settled  alliance  or  stood 
in  jealous  opposition. 

During  the  pristine  era,  the  Jewish  people  enjoyed 
a  religion  according  to  law  ;  but  during  later  ages, 
they  were  distracted  by  the  uncertainties  of  religion 
according  to  opinion.  The  early  faith  and  worship 
was  a  blessing  for  the  people :  the  later  was  a  benefit 
for  the  priest  and  the  rabbi.  The  first  was  liberty 
and  rule  ;  the  second  despotism  and  license.  The 
6rst  was  God's  religion:  the  second  man's. 


92  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 


SECTION  IV. 

RUDOIENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY. 

It  is  generally  granted,  that,  in  the  Mosaic  Insti- 
tute there  was  something  permanent,  as  well  as  much 
that  was  temporary  ;  or  rather,  something  universal, 
as  well  as  a  greater  mass  that  was  local  and  national. 
Few  will  deny  that  the  converse  is  true  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  for  to  insist  upon  the  unchanging  univer- 
sality and  the  perpetual  obligation  of  every  particle 
of  the  religious  economy  left  to  the  world  by  the 
apostles,  is  to  plunge  into  difficulties,  both  historic 
and  dogmatic,  whence  there  can  be  no  way  of  escape. 
It  is  true  that  certain  communions  have  laboured  to 
entrench  themselves  on  this  ground;  but  in  doing  so 
they  have  staked  the  entire  authoritj^  of  Christianity 
upon  the  determination  of  obscure  antiquarian  ques- 
tions. Unless  this  ill-judged  attempt  is  abandoned, 
no  hope  can  be  entertained  of  effecting  the  peace  of 
the  Church. 

Judaism,  although  in  fact  it  underwent  extensive 
modifications  in  the  course  of  ages,  had  no  yielding 
property  originally  imparted  to  it ;  because  it  was 
adapted  to  the  particular  spot  where  it  was  actually 
reared.  But  Christianity,  because  intended  for  all 
places  and  times,  was  left,  so  far  as  relates  to  its  ex- 
terior forms  and  its  social  constitutions,  in  a  plastic 
state.  Its  doctrine  and  its  morality  none  can  ima- 
gine to  be  variable,  since  they  both  spring  from  eter- 
nal truths.  But  this  power  of  accommodation  in 
things  which,  in  their  own  nature  are  inconstant, 
places  the  Gospel  of  Christ  in  contrast  with  almost 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITy.  93 

every  other  relig-ious  sj^stem  ;  and  affords  too  a  for- 
cible, though  silent  proof,  of  the  comprehensive  de- 
sign of  Him  who  p;ave  it  to  the  world.  The  ancient 
promise,  that  the  Lord's  Christ  should  inherit  all  na- 
tions, is  symbolized  in  what  may  be  called  the  ap- 
plicable quality  of  the  worship  and  polity  which  he 
consigned  to  his  followers;  for  these  adjuncts  of  his 
religion  are  so  left  at  large  as  to  admit  of  needful 
modifications,  Christianity  takes  an  elastic  grasp  of 
human  nature:  Judaism  held  it  as  the  solid  mould 
holds  the  metal  that  is  poured  into  it. 

Judaism  is  fifteen  hundred  years  older  than  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  if  the  ordinary  rule  of  the  inverse 
amount  of  historic  light,  as  we  recede  from  our  own 
times,  held  good  in  this  instance,  much  less  obscurity 
would  attach  to  the  circumstantials  of  the  later,  than 
to  those  of  tlie  more  ancient  institution.  But  the 
contrary  is  found  to  be  the  fact;  nor  can  we  be  sur- 
prised that  it  is  so,  when  we  remember  that  the  one 
was  a  system  of  circumstantials,  to  each  and  all  of 
which  religious  importance  was  attached  :  the  other 
not  so  ;  for  Christianity  challenges  tlie  serious  re- 
gards of  men  in  those  things  only  which  conscience 
and  reason  confess  to  be  momentous. 

For  the  most  part,  it  is  easy  to  ascertain  the  usages 
of  the  tabernacle  and  temple  worship,  and  the  Jew- 
ish methods  of  ecclesiastical  management.  But  no- 
thing has  been  found  more  difficult  than  to  determine 
sntisfactoriiy  what  were  the  practices  of  the  apostolic 
Churches,  even  in  some  of  tlie  main  articles  of  disci- 
pline, government,  or  worship.  This  striking  differ- 
ence between  the  Jewish  and  tlie  Christian  econo- 
mies speaks  j)lainly  enough,  one  might  think,  to 
common  sense,  and  should  liave  superseded  many  an 
interminable  controversy.  In  relation  to  certain 
points  of  ritual  or  government,  sound  reason  does 
not  ask  any  thing  more  to  be  said  than  this — namely. 
That  the  primitive  practice  in  such  particulars, 
S* 


94  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

clearly  is  not  clear  ;  therefore  our  modern  consciences 
may  be  relieved  of  all  solicitude  on  the  subject. 
Christianity  is  not  a  religion  of  immovable  exterior 
constitutions  ;  but  of  universal  and  unchangeable 
truths.  Because  universal  in  its  essential  principles, 
and  universal  too  in  its  aspect,  therefore  plastic  in  its 
forms  :  variable  in  its  exterior,  because  invariable  in 
its  substance. 

Whatever,  in  the  New  Testament,  relates  to  modes 
of  worship,  and  to  ecclesiastical  constitutions,  is 
couciied  in  general  terms.  Moreover,  those  allusions 
to  matters  of  fact,  whence  the  apostolic  practice  might 
be  gathered,  are  slight  and  indistinct,  and  not  seldom 
ambiguous.  Our  inference  is  plain. — Facts  so  ob- 
scurely conveyed  m.ust  not  be  taken  as  if  propounded 
to  us  jiuthoritatively.  It  is  not  in  any  such  form 
that  Law  has  ever  been  promulgated  ;  no  legislator 
has  so  tortured  the  ingenuity  of  a  people.  It  is  true 
that,  in  the  lapse  of  ages,  the  phraseology  of  law 
may  become  first  obsolete,  and  then  questionable ; 
but  still  there  was  a  time  when  no  obscurity  attached 
to  it.  But  that  which  never  was  formally  and  dog- 
matically expressed,  and  which,  apart  from  the  aid  of 
traditionary  knowledge,  could  not,  even  in  an  early 
age,  have  been  precisely  determined,  we  may  boldly 
say  was  not  intended  as  Law,  and  can  never  be  so 
employed  without  hurtfully  entangling  consciences, 
and  confounding  what  is  really  important  in  morals 
with  what  is  indifferent.  To  insist  upon  some  sup- 
posed primitive  usage,  known  to  us  only  through  a 
j)roccss  of  ambiguous  inferences;  and  in  doing  so 
trample  upon  the  unchangeable  and  always  intelligi- 
ble rules  of  Christian  charity,  is  to  subvert  reason 
and  piety,  and  to  leave  no  vital  force  in  either. 

God  does  not  confer  common  sense  upon  mankind 
by  miracle  ;  nor  did  he  put  in  movement  the  vast 
economy  of  revelation  for  the  purpose  of  teaching 
that  which   may  otherwise  be  known,  or  of  giving 


RUDIMENTS    OF    CHURCH   POLITY.  95 

decisions  upon  matters  to  which  human  reason  is 
fully  competent.  Our  Lord's  mode  of  popular  in- 
struction shows  clearly  what  is  supposed  and  expected 
on  the  part  of  man,  in  listening  to  divine  teaching. 
He  boldly  expresses  general  principles  in  tropical 
terms  ;  and  these,  such  as  convey  either  no  moral 
meaning,  or  none  that  would  not  be  trite,  frivolous, 
or  even  pernicious,  unless  freely  interpreted,  as  they 
were  intended,  by  sound  common  sense.  The  literal 
version  given  of  some  of  these  instructions  by  the 
fanatic  would  indeed,  if  generally  prevalent,  turn  the 
world  upside  down.  Our  Lord  omits  entirely  those 
explanations,  cautions,  and  limitations,  which  are 
superfluous  where  good  sense  is  in  exercise,  and 
which  must  be  unavailing  where  it  is  wanting. 

The  apostles,  in  like  manner,  not  only  appeal  in 
particular  instances  to  the  good  sense  of  their  follow- 
ers, but  manifestly  presuppose  its  competenc}^  to  the 
management  of  religious,  as  well  as  of  secular  affairs. 
"  I  speak  unto  wise  men  ;  judge  ye  what  I  say." 
"  Be  not  children  in  understanding."  "  Is  there 
not  a  wise  man  among  you  ?"  Such  is  the  style  of 
those  who  were  commissioned  to  guide  mankind,  not 
to  enslave  them.  But  despotism  speaks  a  very  dif- 
ferent language;  and  it  is  its  characteristic  to  leave 
no  room  for  discretion  :  it  will  push  law  and  precept 
into  every  corner  of  life,  and  obtrude  specific  direc- 
tions where  common  reason  and  ordinary  motives 
need  no  aid.  Despotism  grudges  to  treat  men  as 
men;  but  must  always  deal  with  them  either  as  chil- 
dren, or  as  wild  beasts ;  it  will  alwa}'?  prescribe,  and 
measure  out  every  movement;  it  will  pronounce  upon 
the  little  as  well  as  upon  the  great ;  and  is  not  con- 
tent unless  it  makes  itself  felt  and  heard  every  mo- 
ment, and  in  every  place.  Christianity  takes  its 
station  upon  another  ground,  and  is  moved  by  ano- 
ther spirit.  Nevertheless,  we  may  make  the  Apostles 
despots,  if  we  will  thrust  them  into  the  iron  chair  of 


96  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

tyranny,  and  extort  law  from  their  lips,  where  in  fact 
they  have  uttered  no  decree. 

Christians,  of  every  successive  age,  are  solemnly 
enjoined  to  profess,  to  uphold,  and  to  diffuse  the 
Gospel.  But  the  discharge  of  this  arduous  duty,  in 
the  amplitude  of  its  meaning,  involves  many  and 
various  measures,  adapted  to  the  ever-changing  occa- 
sions of  human  affairs,  and  of  a  sort  not  to  be  pre- 
scribed in  a  code,  but  which  must  spring  from  the 
intelHgent  zeal  and  discretion  of  those  who  succes- 
sively steer  the  helm  of  the  Church.  Human  saga- 
city and  prudence  (exalted  and  guided  by  heavenly 
wisdom)  here  find  their  field.  Now,  in  saying  that 
such  and  such  courses  of  action  belong  to  the  sphere 
of  reason,  we  virtually  exclude  tliem  from  the  pecu- 
liar circle  of  revelation.  Revelation  comes  in 
wherever  revelation  is  needed  ;  but  it  is  not  needed 
where  the  means  and  the  end  lie  within  the  grasp  of 
the  human  mind.  God,  who  commands  us  to  employ 
the  faculties  he  lias  given  us,  will  not  at  the  same 
time  supersede  their  exercise:  this  were  a  glaring  in- 
consistency. Whatever  reason  sanctions,  in  things 
appertaining  to  its  domain,  God  virtually  sanctions 
by  the  voice,  at  once,  of  natural  and  of  supernatural 
theology. 

On  the  ground  then  of  these  general  principles, 
we  readil}'  evade  the  superstition  of  the  zealot,  on 
the  one  hand,  who  will  hold  no  communion  with  us 
unless  we  understand,  as  he  does,  some  ambiguous 
allusion  to  a  matter  of  ritual  or  polit}';  and  we  reject, 
on  the  other  hand,  for  the  same  reasons,  the  arro- 
gance of  the  despot  who  desires  to  inflict  penalties 
and  to  impose  restraints  upon  those  who  do  not  ac- 
knowledge his  right  to  legislate  where  Christ  has 
promulgated  no  law.  Furthermore,  on  the  \e\y 
same  principles,  we  hold  ourselves  free  to  devise,  nay, 
more  than  this,  bound  in  duty  to  devise,  and  to  carry 
into  effect,  whatever  schemes  or  modes  of  procedure 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  97 

may  appear  proper  for  promoting  or  for  upholding 
religious  trutli  in  the  world,  and  for  transmitting  it 
to  posterity;  provided  always,  that  such  measures 
accord  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  do  not 
trench,  either  directly  or  remotely,  upon  any  of  its 
explicit  injunctions.  The  duty,  individually,  of  con- 
curring with  aity  such  measures,  and  of  yielding  obe- 
dience to  those  who  enforce  them,  must  be  referred 
to  the  broad  principle  which  enjoins  compliance 
with,  and  submission  to  existing  arrangements, 
wherever  conscience  is  not  invaded.  To  resist  or 
obstruct  public  measures,  without  necessity,  is  always 
immoral. 

But  whatever  is  devised  or  decreed,  within  the 
Christian  Church,  or  decreed  concerning  it,  must 
comport  with  certain  rudiments  of  polity  and  wor- 
ship which  are  to  be  gathered  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  which  stand  there  either  explicitly  deter- 
mined, or  reasonably  involved  in  unquestionable 
facts.  What  is  most  important  of  this  kind  may 
conveniently  be  brought  under  the  following  articles  ; 
the  first  of  which  relates  to  the  duty  of  openly  pro- 
fessing Christianity,  and  to  the  consequences  of  that 
profession  ;  the  second,  to  the  exclusiveness  of  the 
Christian  profession  ;  the  third,  to  the  distribution 
of  functions  within  the  Church;  the  fourth,  to  the 
allotment  of  offices  to  individuals  ;  the  fifth,  to  those 
secular  arrangements  which  this  allotment  makes  ne- 
cessary ;  the  sixth,  to  the  source  or  derivation  of 
sacred  offices  ;  the  seventh,  to  the  counterpoise  of 
the  authority  vested  in  the  officers  of  the  Church  ; 
and  the  eighth,  to  the  gradations  of  rank  among  its 
officers,  or  to  their  relative  position  and  respective 
spheres. 

How  much  soever  of  learning  and  of  dialectic 
ability  may  have  already  been  expended  upon  the 
subjects  involved   in  the   above-named   particulars. 


98  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

there  may  yet  be  room  for  a  statement  of  them,  in 
that  light  in  which  lliey  appear  to  common  sense, 
when  no  interests  of  party,  or  prejudices  of  education 
are  to  be  saved. 

I.  As  matter  of  form,  we  must  advance  the  preli- 
minary axiom — That  Christianity  demands  from  its 
adherents,  without  exception  or  evasion,  an  open 
profession  of  their  belief,  and  frequent  public  com- 
munication, one  with  another,  as  well  for  purposes  of 
worship,  as  of  mutual  aid,  instruction,  and  discipline. 
This  we  assume  as  granted  ;  or  as  not  standing  in 
need  of  the  induction  of  proof.  Christianity  is 
essentially  social,  and  the  public  observances  which  it 
enjoins  involve,  by  necessity,  not  merely  a  casual  in- 
tercourse among  its  adherents;  but  some  system  of 
organization  and  government.  We  had  need  to  bear 
it  in  mind  that,  as  an  incidental  or  occasional  pro- 
fession of  our  faith  in  Christ  does  not  satisfy  the 
obligations  we  are  under  as  his  disciples ;  so  neither 
does  accidental  association,  prompted  by  personal 
friendship  merely,  or  by  taste,  fulfil  the  requirements 
of  church  communion. 

This  first  axiom  of  church  polity  is  properly  in- 
sisted upon  when  we  have  to  refute  asceticism,  and 
mystic  or  abstracted  selfishness ;  whether  in  its  an- 
cient anchoretic  garb,  or  in  its  modern  guise  of  ]:>hi- 
losophic  eclecticism ;  and  this  is  an  error  not  very 
unlikely  at  present  to  gain  some  prevalence.  Refuted 
infidelity  may  probably  take  refuge  in  a  mute  admis- 
sion of  the  truth  of  Christianity.  Again,  the  same 
principle  stands  opposed  to  the  factious  doctrine, 
which  allows  to  every  Christian  the  liberty  to  sepa- 
rate himself  from  his  brethren  on  the  pretext  of  his 
particular  opinions,  on  any  point  of  belief  or  ritual. 
Christ  enjoins  his  disciples  to  assemble  themselves 
together  in  his  name  ;  and  his  apostle  explicitly  for- 
bids their  parting  into  little  companies,  on  the  ground 


RUDIxMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  "  9y 

either  of  doubtful  questions,  or  of  attachment  to  in- 
dividual teachers  and  leaders.  Sectarism  contradicts 
the  first  rudiment  of  Christian  combination. 

Moreover,  a  fair,  and  indeed  an  unavoidable  ex- 
tension of  this  same  first  article  of  church  polity,  in- 
volves the  duly  of  carrying  out  the  Christian  social 
principle  in  every  direction,  and  to  the  utmost  extent 
to  which  it  will  go.  If  all  Christians  residing  within 
a  small  circle  or  vicinage,  are  required  to  recognise 
each  other  as  such,  and  to  institute  a  public  and 
visible  communion,  the  Christians  of  a  larger  circle, 
as  of  a  city,  or  of  a  district,  cannot  be  excused  from 
the  same  duty,  so  far  as  the  conditions  of  that  wider 
sphere  may  admit.  While  Christian  communion 
within  a  small  circle  may  be  intimate  and  frequent, 
within  a  large  circle  it  can  only  be  of  a  more  general 
sort;  but  the  one  is  as  much  demanded  as  the  other; 
and  both  the  one  and  the  other  must  be  systematic 
and  perpetual;  not  casual,  loose,  or  merely  sponta- 
neous. Religious  organization  finds  no  reasonable 
limit  until  it  has  spread  itself  out,  from  congregations 
to  cities,  from  cities  to  provinces,  from  provinces  to 
empires;  nay,  until  the  family  of  man  shall  present 
itself  to  the  pleased  eye  of  Heaven,  in  harmony  and 
concert,  as  the  one  Household  of  Faith.  Combina- 
tion is  the  law  of  Christ:  insulation  and  disunion 
are  essentially  anti-christian  ;  nothing  can  more  dis- 
tinctly be  anti-christian  ;  superstition  is  less  so. 

A  national  Church,  well  devised,  and  wisely  ad- 
ministered, may  be  considered  as  nothing  else  than  a 
reasonable  expansion  of  the  first  rudiment  of  exter- 
nal Christianity  ;  and  as  a  virtual  fulfilment  of  the 
command — "Forsake  not  the  assembling  of  your- 
selves together." 

n.  Our  first  axiom,  which  is  comprehensive  in  its 
aspect,  demands  to  be  attached  to  our  second,  which 
is  restrictive.      Christianity   is  the  belief  of  certain 


100  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

alleged  facts  ;  and  it  Is  also  a  certain  line  ofconduct, 
springing  from  the  motives  which  those  facts  engen- 
der. But  all  men  do  not  profess  this  faith  ;  nor  do 
all  that  profess  it  maintain  a  course  of  conduct  such 
as  must  be  reckoned  necessary  to  the  Christian 
character.  The  Gospel  therefore,  if  its  peculiarity 
and  its  power  are  to  be  preserved,  brings  in  a  dis- 
tinction between  man  and  man,  even  among  those 
who,  in  no  other  sense,  as  members  of  society,  are  to 
be  distinguished.  Our  alternative  is  either  to  lower 
Christianity,  and  to  convert  the  Church  into  a  recep- 
tacle of  impurit}^,  or  to  adhere  to  some  rule  of  dis- 
crimination ;  nor  can  we  use  any  other  rule  than  its 
own.  The  Church  and  the  world  must  needs  be 
parted,  until  the  Church  shall  have  embraced  the 
world,  and  the  world  have  yielded  itself  to  the  Church. 
Christianity  is  a  comprehensive  cornbination  ;  but  it 
is  also  a  special  one.  A  power  of  judgment  and 
exclusion  is  therefore  essential  to  the  very  existence 
of  a  Christian  Church.  It  is  an  after  question,  in 
whose  hands  this  power  is  to  be  lodged,  and  by  what 
regulations  it  is  to  be  circumscribed.  The  two  op- 
posite errors  that  are  to  be  guarded  against  on  this 
point  are,  first,  that  of  negligence  and  license,  by 
means  of  which  great  truths  are  lost  sight  of,  and 
virtue  is  compromised  ;  and  secondly,  that  of  sancti- 
monious or  frivolous  rigidity,  and  which  is  found, 
seldom  or  never,  to  justify  itself  by  a  proportionate 
internal  purity.  It  is,  for  the  most  part,  much  easier 
to  live  in  societies  so  formed,  than  to  get  into  them. 
In  the  apostolic  Churches,  on  the  contrary,  admis- 
sion was  easy,  but  the  terms  of  continued  fellowship 
difficult ;  or  difficult  to  pretenders.  The  door  of  the 
primitive  Church  stood  open,  but  the  Church  itself 
was  kept  clean.  It  is  an  equal  fault  for  a  Church 
to  have  an  open  door,  and  a  promiscuous  assem- 
blage,  like   a  market;    or  a  door  bolted  upon  an 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  101 

Augean  stable.       Morals   are   vitiated   in    the    one 
place  as  fatally  as  in  the  other. 

III.  Christian  association  does  indeed  bring  to- 
gether homogeneous,  but  yet  not  undistinguished 
constituents.  No  sort  of  reciprocity  of  affection,  or 
community  of  feeling  and  purpose,  can  be  more  ab- 
solute than  that  which  should  be  characteristic  of  a 
Christian  Church.  A  Church  is  a  family— a  bro- 
therhood, intimately  blended  together  and  firmly 
compacted  by  immortal  love.  The  welfare  of  one  is 
as  important  and  as  dear  to  all,  as  that  of  another ; 
yet  this  equality  in  love,  is  an  equality  in  nothing- 
else.  The  members  of  a  Church  are  on  a  level,  as 
are  the  members  of  a  family.  The  one  circle,  as  well 
as  the  other,  embraces  all  degrees  of  power,  of  know- 
ledge, and  of  dignity ;  and  involves  subordination, 
supremacies,  obedience.  Broadly  classified,  the 
Church  consists  of  the  taught  and  of  the  teachers,  or 
of  the  governed  and  the  governing;  it  is  at  once  a 
school  of  knowledge,  and  a  school  of  virtue;  and 
those  vast  disparities,  as  well  in  virtue  as  in  know- 
ledge, in  judgment  and  in  conduct,  which  actually 
present  themselves,  become  the  source  of  confusion 
instead  of  advantage,  unless  there  be  eflected  and 
maintained  a  sortinj2^  of  persons,  and  an  assignment 
of  functions,  according  to  the  abilities  of  individuals. 
We  assume  that  any  idea  of  a  Church  at  all  ap- 
proaching to  the  notion  of  a  spontaneous  club  of 
independent  citizens,  combining  themselves  for  the 
furtherance  of  a  common  interest,  and  installing  and 
removing  their  officers  at  pleasure,  is  essentiallv 
at  variance  with  the  principle  of  a  Christian  Church. 
We  assume  moreover,  that  a  church  polity,  such  as 
we  here  represent  it,  can  be  consistently  opposed 
only  by  those  who  rely  upon  a  constant  supernatural 
influence,  imparting  to  each  member,  without  human 
9 


102  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

intervention,  all  the  knowledge  and  virtue  which 
each  is  to  receive.  The  practical  explication  given 
of  the  general  principles  we  are  here  advancing  must 
depend  directly  upon  the  notion  entertained  of  the 
CONSTITUENTS  of  a  Church.  For  example  :  we 
may  think  of  it  (and  this  is  in  fact  a  prevailing 
opinion)  as  a  purel}^  voluntary  association  of  adults, 
each  in  full  possession  of  his  personal  course  of 
conduct,  and  liable  to  no  more  control  than  he  may 
please,  from  day  to  day.  to  submit  to.  This  may 
be  termed  the  political  idea  of  a  Church.  On  the 
other  hand  we  may  draw  our  notions  of  church 
polity  more  from  the  analogy  of  the  domestic  eco- 
nomy ;  and  then  a  Church  is  an  assemblage  of 
persons  enjoying  various  degrees  of  liberty,  but  none 
the  absolute  liberty  proper  to  the  members  of  a  club  ; 
and  some  of  these  persons,  namely,  the  infants  of  the 
Church,  and  its  catechumens,  who  do,  or  who 
ought  to  form  a  large  proportion  of  the  entire  body, 
are  in  no  such  sense  personally  free,  nor  are  they 
possessed  of  a  voice  and  vote  in  the  affairs  of  the 
society.  A  Church,  thus  conceived  of,  implies,  of 
course,  a  sort  of  government,  and  a  principle  of 
independent  authority,  such  as  the  first  named  idea 
does  not  admit.  We  assume  that  the  latter  concep- 
tion comes  much  nearer  to  the  apostolic  and  early 
model  of  ecclesiastical  combination  than  the  former. 
Existing  controversies  hinge,  in  a  great  degree,  upon 
this  very  point ;  and  we  may  be  bold  to  add  that, 
when  the  Christian  scheme,  in  its  benign  and  com- 
prehensive intention,  shall  be  more  fully  expanded 
than  it  is  at  present,  and  when  its  outstretched  arms 
shall  be  suffered  to  embrace  the  social  system,  the 
notion  of  a  Church  will  necessarily  approximate  to 
the  latter  idea,  and  will  utterly  reject  the  former : 
ihe  first  being  secular  and  political,  the  second 
spiritual  and  divine. 


RUDIMENTS    OF    CHURCH  POLITY.  103 

IV.  We  have  said  that,  as  the  constituents  of  a 
Church  are  naturally  distinguished  by  the  greatest 
possible  disparities  of  knowledge,  virtue,  and  age, 
and  as  the  Church  is  both  a  school  of  learning,  and 
a  school  of  practice,  there  is  implied  the  existence 
and  exercise  of  functions  as  well  of  government  as 
of  instruction ;  and  the  possession  of  an  effective 
power  for  carrying  forward  these  various  purposes. 
We  now  go  on  to  allege,  that  these  powers  are  not 
to  be  exercised  casually,  or  spontaneously,  or  inter- 
changeably, by  whoever  may,  from  time  to  time, 
assume  them  ;  but  that  OFFICES  are  to  be  assigned 
to  OFFICERS,  permanently  (if  not  irrevocably)  in- 
stalled. 

It  has  been  affirmed,  and  even  lately,*  that,  as  it  is 
the  common  privilege  of  all  believers  to  be  "  priests 
and  kings,"  a  Church  entire  is  a  sacerdotal  and  royal 
choir,  excluding  the  distinction  between  clergy  and 
laity,  which  distinction  contravenes,  it  is  said,  the 
very  essence  of  the  sacred  association.  It  is  affirmed, 
moreover,  that  the  true  ideal  of  a  Church  rejects  any 
sort  of  supremacy  or  authority,  other  than  that  which 
a  conclave  of  independent  princes  might,  for  conve- 
nience, institute  to-day,  and  abrogate  to-morrow. 
Do  those  who  insist  upon  this  idea  of  a  universal 
hierarchy  forget  that,  in  the  very  contexts  where  the 
priestly  dignity  of  all  Christians  is  affirmed,  spiritual 
authorities  are  recognised,  and  the  duty  of  submis- 
sion to  church  rulers  is  affirmed,  in  unqualified 
terms  f  It  has  been  a  frequent  error  to  apply  to  the 
existing  orders  of  common  life  certain  high  affirma- 
tions of  Scripture,  intended  only,  and  true  only,  in 
a  purely  spiritual  sense.  It  was  thus  that  the  ancient 
ascetics  interpreted  our  Loru's  injunctions,  which 
were  meant  to  elevate  natural  principles,  in  a  sense 

*  See  Neander's  "  History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church." 
Passim. 


104  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

that  altogether  subverted  the  social  system,  and  did 
violence  to  God's  own  laws. 

We  here  take  it  as  a  matter  of  history,  not  need- 
ing formal  proof,  that  apostolic  practice  and  precept 
established,  in  the  primitive  Church,  offices  assigned 
to  individuals,  who  permanently  exercised  the  specific 
functions  of  their  places.  If  instruction  was  to  be 
carried  on,  there  were  to  be  teachers ;  and  if  order 
was  to  be  maintained,  there  must  be  rulers;  and 
these,  not  casually  instated,  or  removable  at  pleasure, 
but  firmly  seated  in  their  chairs,  and  removable  only, 
if  at  all,  in  extraordinary  modes,  and  on  signal 
reasons. 

Apart  from  the  warrant  of  apostolic  precept  and 
example,  or  if  left  without  authoritative  guidance  in 
this  instance,  a  Christian  society  would  reasonably 
and  necessarily  take  the  course  of  instituting  per- 
manent offices,  inasmuch  as  the  common  sense  and 
universal  usage  of  mankind  demands  such  a  mode 
of  securing  the  general  welfare.  The  rule  which 
requires  functions  to  be  assigned  to  persons,  rises 
always  in  importance,  and  in  obligation,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  difficulty  and  the  value  of  the  services  to 
be  performed.  Trivial  or  facile  duties  may  well  be 
left  to  promiscuous  agencies ;  not  so  those  which,  in 
a  high  degree,  demand  skill,  experience,  accom- 
plishments, energy  of  mind,  and  specific  qualities  of 
the  temper.  Now  in  these  respects  there  are  no 
duties,  whatever,  equal  in  importance  to  those  in- 
volved in  the  diffusion  and  maintenance  of  religion. 
No  duties  are  at  once  so  difficult,  and  so  peculiar  in 
their  conditions.  If  in  any  case  the  division  of  labour 
is  necessary  and  beneficial,  it  is  so  in  this  case.  Bet- 
ter leave  the  care  of  the  public  health,  better  leave 
the  business  of  civil  government,  to  the  promiscuous 
ability  of  any  who  may  offer  their  services,  than  so 
to  leave  the  care  of  souls. 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  105 

If  a  confirmatory  argument  were  needed  to  esta- 
blish this  point,  we  might  derive  one  of  a  conclusive, 
though  inferential  sort,  from  our  Lord's  formal  enact- 
ment, That  "  those  who  preach  the  Gospel  should 
live  of  the  Gospel."  In  thus  exempting  the  religious 
teacher  from  the  ordinary  labours  of  life,  and  in 
throwing  upon  the  people  the  duty  of  shielding  their 
instructors  from  secular  solicitudes,  it  must  follow, 
that  certain  persons  are  permanently  devoted  to  the 
service  of  the  Church  ;  unless  indeed  we  admit  the 
great  loss  and  damage,  both  secular  and  spiritual, 
which  are  consequent  upon  the  taking  up,  and  the 
laying  down  of  labours,  barely  compatible  the  one 
with  the  other.  Occasional  services,  remunerated  by 
an  occasional  stipend,  could  never  be  approved  of, 
as  systematically  the  best  and  most  economic  mode 
of  obtaining  such  services.  A  practice  of  this  kind 
may,  it  is  true,  be  justifiable  under  peculiar  circum- 
stances ;  but  can  never  be  good  as  a  universal 
method.  The  very  exception  stated  by  St.  Paul  in 
his  own  case,  establishes  the  rule ;  and  with  the  less 
room  for  mistake,  inasmuch  as,  on  this  point,  he 
makes  an  explicit  allusion,  in  confirmation  of  his 
plea,  to  the  Jewish  sacerdotal  institute,  under  which 
the  ministers  of  religion,  as  a  permanent  body,  re- 
ceived a  revenue  that  was  neither  parsimonious  nor 
precarious. 

Our  inference  may  be  stated  conversely. — As  the 
preachers  of  the  Gospel,  by  the  express  law  of  Christ, 
are  entitled  to  a  comfortable  maintenance  from  the 
people  ;  so  the  people,  by  implication  of  rights,  may, 
so  long  as  they  afford  this  provision,  claim  the  un- 
divided services  of  their  teachers.  These  duties  are 
correlative ;  and  the  one  may  be  assumed  as  the  con- 
dition of  the  other.  If  the  people  fail  to  support  their 
ministers  in  reasonable  competency,  these  ministers 
9* 


106  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

may  hold  themselves  free  to  provide   for  their  wants 
in  what  other  manner  they  may  be  able. 

Here  again  we  must  say  that,  if  we  reject  the  cle- 
rical institute,  our  alternative  is  the  hypothesis  of  a 
constant  supernatural  teaching,  conveyed  to  the 
Church,  either  silently,  or  in  so  sovereign  and  casual 
a  manner  as  to  leave  no  room  for  the  ordinary  exer- 
cise of  the  human  faculties.  The  clerical  institute 
embodies  the  great  principle,  that  God  operates  by 
the  medium  of  second  causes,  always,  where  such  a 
medium  is  naturally  adapted  to  the  end  in  view. 
Even  in  the  immediate  exertion  of  his  almighty 
power,  we  find  some  attendant  and  ordinary  instru- 
mentality. 

V.  The  train  of  our  inferences  leads  us  next  to  the 
incidental,  though  very  important  point,  of  the  mode 
and  conditions  of  that  maintenance  which  the  clerical 
body  may  rightfully  demand  from  the  people. 

This  point  involves  some  general  principles  of 
extensive  application.  Not  to  go  over  the  ground 
touched  upon  in  a  preceding  section,  we  have  yet 
to  repeat  the  assumption,  that  Christianity  implies, 
and  leaves  room  for  the  exercise  of  common  sense  in 
all  those  matters  which  naturally  and  easily  fall  under 
its  cognizance.  In  things  intelligible  and  secular, 
revelation  does  not  supersede  reason,  or  interfere 
with  its  exercise.  On  this  path  superstitious  and 
heated  minds  have  entangled  themselves  in  the  most 
serious  difficulties.  Looking  for  a  hand  from 
Heaven,  where  Heaven  says,  "Help  thyself,"  they 
have  lost  at  once  the  benefits  of  reason,  and  the  aids 
of  revelation. 

Now  if  there  are  at  all  any  arrangements,  con- 
nected with  religion,  which  may  be  granted  to  come 
within  the  province  of  human  prudence,  pecuniary 
arrangements  certainly  are  of  that  sort.      In  these, 


RUDIMENTS   OF   CHURCH   POLITY.  107 

eminently,  men  are  at  home,  and  are  competent  to 
the  part  assigned  them.  Again,  if  there  be  any  por- 
tion of  the  ecclesiastical  economy  which  asks  to  be 
specifically  adjusted,  in  each  instance,  to  places, 
times,  and  popular  habits,  or  if  there  be  any  portion 
concerning  which  an  irrevocable  and  universal  enact- 
ment would  have  been  undesirable,  or  impracticable, 
surely  the  matter  of  church  revenues  is  such. 
Nothing  could  more  effectually  have  obstructed  the 
progress  of  the  Gospel,  nothing  could  have  been 
more  at  variance  with  its  spirit,  and  intention,  as  a 
religion  for  mankind,  than  the  entailing  upon  the 
Church,  by  apostolic  authority,  certain  fiscal  regula- 
tions, every  where  and  always  obligatory.  A  system 
may  be  practicable  and  beneficial  in  one  age  or 
country,  which  is  not  so  in  another.  Or  there  may 
be  a  mode  of  maintaining  the  ministers  of  religion 
decisively  advantageous  where  Christianity  is  fully 
recognised  by  a  whole  people,  which  could  not  have 
obtained,  and  which  could  not  even  have  been  sug- 
gested, at  first,  and  under  those  circumstances  of 
opposition  against  which,  for  the  accomplishment  of 
high  purposes,  the  Church  was  to  push  its  way. 

All  that  ought  to  be  expected  from  the  apostles  on 
this  subject,  is  precisely  what  we  actually  receive; 
namely,  a  very  distinct  assertion  of  the  general 
PRINCIPLE,  that  those  who  devote  themselves  to  the 
religious  instruction  of  the  people,  should  live  by 
that  means.  The  duty  of  the  people  and  the  claims 
of  the  clergy,  are,  by  the  inspired  writers,  established 
on  the  firm  basis  of  an  explicit  enactment,  as  "  from 
the  Lord  ;"  and  an  appeal  also,  confirmatory  of  both, 
is  made  at  once  to  common  reasons  of  equity,  and  to 
the  pure  and  generous  sentiments  which  the  Gospel 
brings  into  play.  On  no  plea,  except  that  of  abso- 
lute inability,  through  extreme  poverty,  can  a  Chris- 
tian people  evade  their  obligation  in  this  behalf.  No 


108  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

individual,  professing  any  sort  of  submission  to  the 
law  of  Christ,  and  no  community  publicly  recognising 
the  Scriptures  as  divine,  can  be  deemed  at  liberty  to 
save  himself,  or  itself,  the  cost  of  a  clerical  institute  ; 
nor  can  the  indifference  of  an}^  or  their  mistaken  ap- 
prehensions of  what  is  becoming,  excuse  them  from 
bearing  their  part  in  this  expense.  God  "  commands 
all  men  every  where  to  repent,  and  believe  the  Gos- 
pel ;"  all  therefore  to  whom  this  message  comes  are 
liable  to  the  charge  thence  accruing  ;  nor  is  there 
any  injustice  in  requiring  men  to  fulfil  a  condition 
necessarily  connected  with  their  own  highest  welfare. 

In  what  particular  mode  the  people  shall  fulfil  their 
obligation  toward  their  religious  teachers,  is  not 
determined  by  the  authority  which  enjoins  it.  The 
ground  here  is  open,  and  the  subject,  in  all  its 
bearings,  lies  within  the  compass  of  common  sense  ; 
we  are  free  therefore  to  devise  schemes,  and  to  try 
experiments  ;  and,  for  our  guidance  we  may  turn  to 
the  lessons  of  experience.  Nothing,  in  this  matter,  is 
unlawful,  which  involves  no  injustice  ;  and  we  hold  it 
a  most  idle  superstition  to  affirm  that  nothing  is  ab- 
stractedly good,  or  Christian  like,  except  that  acci- 
dental mode,  which,  from  the  peculiarity  of  the  case, 
was  the  only  one  whereby  the  first  promulgators  of 
the  Gospel  could  be  maintained.  In  truth,  no  modern 
religious  community  adheres  to  any  such  rule  ;  but  on 
the  contrary,  the  very  parties  most  vehement  in  their 
advocacy  of  the  voluntary  principle,  themselves  care- 
fully retain  whatever  corporate  property  may  have 
fallen  into  their  hands  ;  and  while  they  inveigh  against 
endowments,  must  be  understood  to  mean,  any  endow- 
ments but  their  own. 

The  first  Christian  teachers  could  be  supported  in 
no  other  way  than  by  the  undefined  gratuities  of  their 
converts;  nor,  during  the  spring-time  of  zeal  and  af- 
fection was  this  revenue  likely  either  to  be  insufficient, 


RUDIMENTS   OF    CHURCH    POLITY.  109 

or  injurious  by  its  redundancy.  The  same  means  of 
support  must,  of  course,  always  be  abstractedly 
lawful  ;  and  it  may  indeed  be  free  from  objection,  so 
long  as  some  method  of  distibution  is  adhered  to  (as 
in  the  first  age  of  the  Church)  which  cuts  off  the  de- 
pendence of  individuals  upon  individuals.  And  yet 
this  simple  plan  will  always  tend  toward  a  more  com- 
plex form.  At  a  very  early  time  it  actually  reached 
such  a  form;  for  the  Church  possessed  herself  of  a 
chest  ;  that  is  to  say,  became  mistress  of  a  disposable 
capital ;  and  availed  herself  of  the  powers  and  advan- 
tages thence  naturally  arising.  The  stewards  of  that 
chest,  and  those  for  whom  they  acted,  were  no  longer 
in  an  absolute  sense  dependent  upon  the  people.  No 
imaginable  provisions  can  exclude  the  possibility  of 
such  accumulations.  Moreover  the  Church,  even  in 
its  infancy,  became  the  inheritress  of  property,  real  as 
well  as  personal ;  and  often  to  a  large  amount.  Were 
these  bequests  (whether  prudent  and  desirable  or  not) 
were  they  essentially  immoral  and  unchristian,  and 
such  as  should  have  been  invariably  renounced  f 
They  are  not  so  esteemed  in  our  own  enlightened 
times  ;  nor  are  they  rejected  by  the  most  stern  and 
self-denying  of  our  sects. 

Or  we  might  ask,  was  it  an  immoral  act,  on  the 
part  of  Constantine,  when  he  recognised  and  con- 
firmed the  then  existing  property  of  religious  corpo- 
rations, and  so  at  once  sealed  and  saved  the  vvealth 
of  the  Church  ?  we  do  not  so  think  it.  The  Church, 
therefore,  in  the  gradual,  the  natural,  and  the  una- 
voidable course  of  events,  had  moved  from  her  ori- 
ginal position,  in  relation  to  the  people  ;  and  though 
no  impo&t  was  levied,  was  yet  sustained  in  a  mode 
essentially  unlike  the  one  that  had  prevailed  in  the 
apostolic  age.  The  voluntary  principle  was  still  in 
full  vigour ;  but  its  bearing  upon  the  clergy  had  be- 
come complicated,  and  indirect ;  and  this  had  hap- 


110  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

pened  in  a  manner  not  at  any  distinct  stage  of  the 
process  to  be  either  condemned,  or  arrested. 

When  at  length  the  civil  authority  felt  the  necessity 
of  at  once  setting  a  bound  to  the  superstitious  pro- 
fession of  the  people  toward  the  Church,  and  of 
stretching  a  controlling  hand  over  the  avidity  of  the 
clergy,  and  when  different  methods  of  commutation 
were  introduced,  or  a  definite  impost  was  granted,  in 
the  place  of  unbounded  gratuities;  can  we  affirm  that 
the  change  was  from  a  better  method  to  a  worse ;  or 
that,  in  any  sense,  primitive  purity  was  by  this  means 
compromised  in  behalf  of  corruption  and  subserviency? 
The  very  reverse  is  nearer  to  the  truth.  The  system 
of  church  taxation,  and  the  restrictive  testamentary  en- 
actments therewith  connected,  came  in  as  A  RELIEF  to 
the  people,  and  as  a  check  upon  the  clergy :  it  was  a 
dam,  thrown  across  the  swollen  torrent  that  had  been 
Jong  drowning  the  Church,  and  draining  the  State. 

Nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  for  those, 
whether  churchmen  or  statesmen,  who  wished  to  sub- 
stitute a  legal  provision  for  the  then  voluntary  prin- 
ciple, and  its  enormous  abuses,  to  look  to  the  Mosaic 
Institution,  as  their  guide  and  sanction. — The  in- 
spired writers  had  given  no  warning  that  a  system 
which  the  Divine  wisdom  had  established  in  one  in- 
stance, must  be  held  inexpedient  and  unlawful  in 
every  other;  nay,  they  had  virtually  linked  the 
Christian  to  the  Jewish  clerical  scheme  by  appealing 
to  the  one  as  affording  a  reason  applicable  to  the 
other.  The  universal  usage  of  mankind  accorded, 
in  this  instance,  with  that  of  the  Jewish  people;  nor 
did  any  thing  stand  opposed  to  it,  but  the  accidental 
practice  of  the  primitive  Church,  which  practice  had 
itself,  as  was  natural,  fallen  into  a  disorderly  and  per- 
nicious course. 

In  truth,  to  preserve,  for  any  length  of  time,  and 
in  its  absolute  simplicity  and  purity,  the  principle  of 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  Ill 

clerical  support,  by  the  immediate  and  undefined 
gratuities  of  the  people,  is  what  no  communion  has 
been  able  to  effect :  nor  can  we  even  imagine  the 
means  of  doing  so.  But  when  once  this  pristine 
simplicity  has  given  way,  as  it  soon  must,  in  part,  or 
entirely,  to  a  financial  systEx^i,  and  has  admitted 
accumulations,  endowments,  and  corporate  posses- 
sions, then  a  very  fair  question  presents  itself,  namely, 
whether  an  irregular  and  anomalous  method,  open  to 
undefined  abuses,  may  not,  with  high  advantage,  as 
well  to  the  people  as  to  the  clergy,  be  exchanged  for 
a  legal  provision.  To  oppose  such  an  exchange  on 
the  pretext  of  primitive  purity  and  abstract  principle, 
must  be  deemed  equally  disingenuous  and  illogical, 
when  the  objection  comes  from  those  who  make  no 
scruple  of  accepting  bequests,  of  retaining  endow- 
ments, of  accumulating  funds,  or  of  renting  the  area 
of  a  chapel.  To  demand  payment  for  so  many 
square  inches  of  a  bench  or  pew,  is  a  practice  as  little 
apostolic  as  to  demand  a  tithe. 

It  is  however  quite  manifest,  and  ought  always  to 
be  in  the  most  explicit  manner  acknowledged,  that 
where,  unhappily,  Christianity  has  sunk  down  into 
several  irreconcilable,  or  unreconciled  forms,  and 
where  faction  and  political  interests  have  firmly  en- 
cased theological  controv^ersies,  there,  some  special 
provisions  are  called  for  by  bare  justice,  and  by  the 
principle  of  religious  liberty,  to  prevent  a  public 
church  tax  from  resting  unfairly  upon  portions  of  the 
community.  True  indeed  it  is  that  no  arrangements 
which  take  their  necessity  from  what  is  abstractedly 
evil,  can  be,  in  themselves,  abstractedly  good: — 
abstract  evil  proves  itself  to  be  evil,  at  whatever 
point  it  comes  in  contact  with  our  welfare  :  nothing 
can  avail  to  make  it  work  well ;  and  our  best  inge- 
nuity and  best  intentions  still  are  bafiled.     Now  re- 


112  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

ligious  divisions  are  the  greatest  of  abstract  evils ; 
and  they  therefore  trouble  and  distract  and  disparage 
every  community  that  is  affected  by  them.  So  long 
as  religious  divisions  continue,  it  is  vain  to  hope  for 
an  absolutely  prosperous  and  happy  condition,  either 
of  the  Church  or  the  State.  Meanwhile  every  pos- 
sible endeavour  should  be  made  to  avert,  or  to  re- 
move those  occasions  of  exasperation  which  keep 
alive  faction,  and  put  in  peril  the  whole  frame-work 
of  society.  It  may  indeed  be  wise  and  expedient  to 
support,  or  to  abstain  from  removing,  an  existing 
form  of  religion  ;  although  it  be  a  form  disapproved 
of  by  a  portion  of  the  people ;  but  in  this  case  the 
acquiescence  of  the  dissidents  should  be  mildly  urged 
on  the  general  grounds  of  public  utility ;  not  de- 
manded on  high  and  arrogant  principles ;  and  in 
such  a  case  these  dissidents  would  indeed  entitle  them- 
selves to  great  praise  could  they  rise  to  the  patriotic, 
Christian-like,  and  generous  feeling,  of  consenting 
to  a  state  of  things  confessedly  not  abstractedly  the 
best  possible;  but  yet  the  best  which  can  be  effected 
under  the  embarrassing  circumstances  that  surround 
us.  This  perhaps  is  too  much  to  expect  from  the 
infirmity  of  human  nature  ;  and  if  so,  it  will  only 
remain  for  us  to  alleviate,  in  every  practicable  man- 
ner, the  galling  burden  that  rests  on  some  of  our 
fellow-citizens  and  Christian  brethren. 

VI.  We  have  assumed,  that  the  Church,  as  it  has 
its  offices,  must  have  its  officers ;  and  these  a  class 
of  persons  permanently  devoted  to  religious  services. 
We  assume  moreover,  that  the  particular  mode  in 
which  this  class  is  to  receive  its  pecuniary  support  is 
a  matter  fully  open  to  the  determination  of  the  com- 
mon sense  of  mankind ;  and  that  therefore  any 
method  is  lawful,  which  is  found  to  be  expedient. 


RUDIMENTS   OF   CHURCH   POLITY.  113 

But  the  question  which  next  presents  itself  is  of 
the  highest  moment,  and  involves  almost  every  other 
consideration,  connected  with  church  polity.  Our 
question  is  this — Whence  does  the  clerical  function 
and  power  arise  ;  or  in  what  manner  is  it  transmitted 
from  hand  to  hand;  or  under  whose  control  does  it 
rest  ? 

In  simply  stating  his  opinion  on  this  capital  point, 
the  author  must  not  be  supposed  either  unapprized  of 
the  vast  controversy  of  which  it  has  been  the  subject; 
or  as  presuming  to  dogmatize  where  the  wise  are  dif- 
fident;  but  he  yet  feels  that,  as  the  question  has  sel- 
dom hitherto  been  treated  except  by  partisans,  and 
never  without  an  anxious  regard  to  some  existing  in- 
terests, there  is  room  for  considering  it  in  the  light  of 
common  sense,  and  as  it  appears  to  minds  divested  of 
sectarian  predilections. 

The  clerical  function  and  power  may  then,  in  the 
first  place,  be  imagined  to  be  derived,  in  each  in- 
stance, immediately  from  Heaven,  by  impulses  and 
irresistible  convictions  on  the  mind  of  the  individual 
who  challenges  to  himself  the  right  to  exercise  eccle- 
siastical authority.  Such  was  the  prophetic  function 
of  old;  and  such,  essentially,  is  the  idea  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry  entertained  by  the  Quakers ;  and  in 
measure  too  by  some  other  modern  sects.  We  do 
not  here  deem  it  necessary  to  entertain  this  supposi- 
tion, as  worthy  of  argument:  in  truth,  by  its  very 
nature,  it  exempts  itself  from  the  range  of  reason  : 
its  only  ground  is  that  of  perpetual  miraculous 
attestation. 

In  the  second  place,  sacerdotal  authority  may  be 
affirmed  to  spring,  by  perpetual  derivation  and  tra- 
dition, from  itself.  Thai  is  to  sny,  the  clerical  body, 
in  each  successive  age,  may  be  held  to  be  empowered 
to  deliver  to  its  sus'cessors,  called  and  installed  by 
10 


114  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

itself,  the  entire  authority  which,  in  a  like  manner,  it 
received  from  its  predecessors.  This  doctrine  is  the 
fundamental  article  of  the  Romish  Church,  (yet  it  is 
a  doctrine  quite  separable  from  the  usurpations  and 
errors  of  that  Church,)  and  it  has  been  inherited  and 
embodied  by  the  Church  of  England,  and  other 
episcopal  communions. 

In  the  third  place,  all  powers  of  government  and 
instruction,  within  the  Church,  may  be  alleged  to 
originate  with  the  will  of  those  for  whom  such  powers 
are  exercised :  that  is  to  say,  of  the  people,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  their  clergy,  and  who  may  elect  and 
remove  their  teachers  and  rulers  at  pleasure. 

Or  lastly,  there  may  be  imagined  a  sort  of  com- 
promise between  clergy  and  laity,  such  as  shall  leave 
a  power  of  calling  and  ordaining  with  the  former, 
and  of  electing  and  instating  with  the  latter.  This 
last  method  prevails  among  most  of  our  modern 
sects,  but  under  circumstances  that  produce  diiferent 
practical  results.  Presbyterianism,  attempered  in 
an  effective  degree  by  lay  influence,  presents  this 
scheme  in  perhaps  its  most  favourable  aspect,  and  at 
once  confers  a  substantial  and  necessary  power  upon 
the  clergy,  while  ihe  people  have  the  means  of 
securing  themselves  against  tyranny  and  encroach- 
ment. The  congregational  communions,  while  they 
attribute  a  semblance  of  special  authority  to  their 
clergy,  in  the  instance  of  ordination,  (wliich  however 
is  now  very  commonly  confessed  to  amount  to  nothing 
more  than  a  paternal  or  fraternal  recognition  of  the 
people's  sovereign  act,)  do  substantially  devolve  all 
power,  not  indeed  upon  the  Church  ; — for  a  Church, 
by  universal  admission,  is  a  body,  consisting  of  people 
and  ministers ;  but  upon  the  laity,  as  acting  apart 
from  the  clergy,  and  as  considered  competent  to  de- 
cide in  the  most  important  of  all  affairs,  without  their 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH    POLITY.  115 

rulers,  and  indeed  while  they  have  none.*  Moreover, 
by  the  absolute  insulation  of  each  chapel  society, 
and  by  the  immediate  dependence  of  each  minister 
upon  the  single  congregation  which  he  serves,  all 
forms  and  semblances  of  clerical  authority,  be  they 
what  they  may,  are  virtually  held  in  abeyance.  He 
who  must  depart  when  those  who  support  him  no 
longer  wish  for  his  services,  exercises  no  power  such 
as  can  avail  in  those  very  instances  where  power  is 
needed — namely,  to  enforce  discipline  against  sturdy 
delinquents,  and  to  maintain  truth  and  morality  in 
opposition  to  the  caprices  or  the  lax  desires  of  the 
people.  This  is  a  theory  of  church  government 
which,  much  as  it  may  recommend  itself  to  our 
modern  republican  sentiments,  must  be  denounced  as 
subversive  of  all  religious  authority,  (whether  for  good 
or  ill,)  and  as  broadly  and  essentially  distinguished 
from  the  apostolic  model. 

In  making  a  choice  among  the  above-named  prin- 
ciples, and  especially  if  we  were  to  do  so  apart  from 
apostolic  precepts  or  precedents,  it  would  be  very 
natural  to  have  recourse  to  the  analogy  of  civil  life; 
and,  as  under  a  free  government,  all  public  functions 
return,  immediately  or  remotely,  to  their  source — the 
will  of  those  for  whose  benefit  they  are  exercised,  the 
inference  would  be,  that  religious  functions  should 
obey  the  same  rule ;  and  that  the  selective  and  elec- 
tive powers,  including  necessarily  the  power  to  revoke, 
and  to  repel  pastoral  authority,  should  reside  in  the 
people.  This  sort  of  reasoning  from  secular  principles, 
acquires  peculiar  force  when  applied  to  religious  com- 
munities in  modern  times,  breathing  as  they  do  the 
inspiriting  atmosphere  of  democratic  independence. 


*  Let  it  be  remembered,  that  though  a  Congregation  may  be  des- 
titute of  a  minister,  a  Church,  in  the  primitive  sense  of  the  word,  is 
never  destitute  of  her  pastors.  The  severest  persecutions  did  not  reduce 
nny  ancient  Church  to  absolute  widowhood. 


116  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

Certain  modes  of  government  might,  it  may  be  said, 
be  tolerable  or  good  in  times  or  in  countries  where  the 
popular  mind  had  not  been  kindled,  and  where  silent 
submission  to  irresponsible  authority  has  long;  been 
the  settled  habit  of  the  people  ;  but  the  same  modes 
become  wholly  inapplicable  to  societies  unaccustomed 
to  endure  any  species  of  restraint  beyond  what  is  felt 
by  all  to  be  indispensable.  It  may,  we  say,  seem  as 
if  a  scheme  of  church  government  which  involves  sub- 
stantial clerical  powers,  even  though  proved  to  be 
apostolic,  could  not  find  room  upon  modern  ground. 

Then  again,  when  the  constant  tendency  of  privi- 
leged orders,  and  especially  of  sacerdotal  orders,  to 
encroach  upon  the  public  liberties,  is  considered,  we 
must  feel  strongly  the  danger  of  giving  place  to  a  self- 
derived,  and  independent  religious  authority.  With 
the  evidence  of  history  before  us,  and  the  common 
impulses  of  human  nature  in  view,  every  dispassion- 
ate mind  reluctates  to  admit  a  principle  that  seems 
so  pregnant  with  mischief.  If  at  last  compelled  to 
grant  that  our  Lord  actually  left  his  Church  on  this 
foundation,  we  are  placed  in  a  position  that  demands 
the  most  vigilant  regard ;  nor  can  we  do  less  than 
bestow  an  extreme  care  upon  the  duty  of  maintaining, 
in  its  full  efficiency,  that  counterpoise  to  spiritual 
despotism,  or  rather  that  safeguard  against  its  ad- 
vances, which  we  find  to  have  been  in  play  within  the 
apostolic  societies. 

In  the  present  instance  argumentative  equity  re- 
quires us  to  premise  a  caution  of  the  following  kind  : 
— while  speaking  of  the  maintenance  of  the  clergy, 
we  rebutted  an  inference  too  hastily  drawn  from  the 
practice  of  the  first  Churches,  as  if  it  were  to  be  bind- 
ing upon  ourselves,  by  saying  that,  as,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  no  other  method  of  supporting  the  preach- 
ers of  the  Gospel  than  that  of  the  free  contributions 
of  the  people  could  then  find  room,  it  will  not  follow 


RUDIMENTS   OF   CHURCH   POLITY.  117 

that  the  same  method  was  intended  to  be  every  where 
adhered  to,  when  the  external  j)osition  of  Christianity 
in  the  world  should  come  to  be  materially  altered. 
Now  the  analogy  of  reasoning  demands  that  we  should, 
at  the  least,  hesitate  a  while  before  we  regard  the 
conduct  of  the  Institutor  of  a  NEW  Religion  in  ap- 
pointing his  ministers,  or  even  their  method  of  proceed- 
ing in  naming  their  successors,  as  absolutely  conclusive 
in  favour  of  the  same  method,  in  after  times;  inas- 
much as  no  other  plan  of  appointment  can  be  ima- 
gined as  proper  or  practicable,  at  the  commencement 
of  a  new  order  of  things:  yet  some  other  plan  may 
be  both  possible  and  elegible  when  this  same  economy 
has  run  on  through  a  tract  of  time.  It  would  be  a 
solecism  to  talk  of  the  popular  election  or  installation 
of  the  teachers  of  a  new  faith.  Let  then  this  preli- 
minary caution  be  kept  in  mind  ;  and  although  it  may 
be  found  that  we  search  the  Gospels,  the  Acts,  and  the 
Epistles  in  vain  for  any  precept,  precedent,  or  fair 
inference,  such  as  might  warrant  the  popular  creation 
of  the  ministers  of  religion,  or  a  popular  control  over 
them,  when  created,  in  the  way  of  election,  removal, 
or  dispossession  of  clerical  character,  nevertheless  we 
must  abstain  from  positively  concluding  that  no  such 
democratic  control  may  be  lawful  in  our  own  times. 
In  fact,  though  not  to  be  traced  in  the  canonic  writ- 
ings, the  popular  voice  and  suffrage  in  the  election  of 
the  bishop,  unquestionably  obtained  a  very  early  pre- 
valence ;  and  those  who  absolutely  exclude  the  will  of 
the  people  in  the  choice  of  their  pastors,  although 
not  reprovable  by  letter  of  Scripture,  yet  oppose  one 
of  the  most  ancient  and  universal  of  ecclesiastical 
usages. 

A  curious  inconsistency  has  attended  the  modern 
controversy  on  the  source  or  origin  of  clerical 
power,  inasmuch  as  the  opponents  have  mutually 
exchanged  positions.     Those,  on  the  one  side,  whose 


118  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM. 

rule  and  practice  it  ordinarily  is  to  pay  a  profound 
regard  to  ancient  authority,  and  who,  not  in  a  few 
instances,  are  accustomed  to  eke  out  a  scanty  scrip- 
ture proof  by  the  testimony  of  the  Fathers,  and  to 
lean  on  the  arm  of  tradition,  shut  their  ears  on  this 
point  against  the  clear  and  undoubted  voice  of  vene- 
rable antiquity,  and  stiffly  adhere  to  the  express 
apostolic  practice.  On  the  other  hand^ — and  we 
cannot  but  note  the  strange  casualties  incident  to 
theological  warfare,  those  who,  on  almost  every 
other  question,  if  not  on  every  other,  take  their 
immovable  stand  upon  the  explicit  authority  of 
Scripture,  and  who  will  do  neither  more  nor  less 
than  can  be  made  good  by  text  upon  text,  these  very 
persons,  in  defending  the  main  article  of  their  eccle- 
siastical polity,  namely  the  popular  call,  appoint- 
ment, election,  and  removal,  of  pastors  and  teachers, 
are  left  without  warranty  of  Scripture,  (some  torturing 
of  terms  excepted,)  and  without  the  sanction  of  a 
single  apostolic  instance;  and  are  compelled  to  sup- 
port the  practice  they  adopt  on  the  lower  ground  of 
expedienc}',  or  of  the  natural  rights  of  men,  or  of 
the  example  of  the  early  Church,  as  reported  by 
ecclesiastical  writers.  Thus  does  the  characteristic 
practice  of  these  parties  stand  contradicted  by  their 
characteristic  principle.  We  would  be  careful  not  to 
overstate  facts,  and  yet  can  say  nothing  less  than 
this.  That  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  in  church 
affairs,  their  competency  to  act  without  their  pastors, 
the  dependence  of  single  pastors  or  teachers  upon 
single  congregations,  the  validity  of  a  popular  call 
to  the  work  of  the  ministry,  the  election  of  each  pas- 
tor by  his  flock,  and  the  power  to  remove  him  at 
pleasure;  or,  in  one  word,  the  doctrine  of  unmixed 
church  democracy,  is  zealously  professed,  and  reso- 
lutely acted  upon,  by  those  who  affirm  that  our  Lord 
left  his  Church,  as  well  in  its  polity  as  its  doctrine 


RUDIMENTS   OF    CHURCH    POLITY.  119 

and  morals,  such  precisely  as  he  willed  that  it  should 
continue;  and  that  whatever  is  not  of  express 
Divine  appointment  is  a  corruption,  and  an  affront 
to  his  supremacy  ! 

The  strangeness  of  this  inconsistency  has  in  fact 
imposed  upon  the  Christian  world  ;  for  it  has  been 
assumed  as  incredible  that  the  rigid  advocates  of  the 
sufficiency  of  Scripture  in  matters  of  polity  and 
worship,  should  themselves  have  laid,  as  the  founda- 
tion-stone of  their  ecclesiastical  structure,  a  practice 
that  is  destitute  of  apostolic  precept  and  example.  It 
is  not  without  some  amazement  that  we  find  a  con- 
gregational Church,  on  the  modern  scheme,  pro- 
ceeding in  the  momentous  act  of  creating,  or  of 
electing  to  itself  a  pastor  and  teacher,  without  being 
able  to  allege,  from  the  New  Testament,  any  law  or 
license  to  that  effect,  or  any  example  of  an  unam- 
biguous and  satisfactory  kind.  Whether  this  prac- 
tice may  now  be  expedient  and  lawful,  is  not  the 
question  ;  but  is  it  formally  enjoined  ?  are  the  people 
instructed  by  the  apostles  in  what  manner  to  acquit 
themselves  of  so  difficult  and  peculiar  a  duty?  or  is 
any  one  of  the  apostolic  societies  exhibited  in  delibe- 
ration on  the  occasion  of  calling  one  pastor  to  their 
service,  and  of  discharging  another  ?  On  secular 
principles  nothing  can  be  more  simple  or  reasonable 
than  that  those  who  pa^'  should  command  ;  and  in 
the  present  temper  of  mankind,  especially  in  certain 
circles,  it  may  be  nearly  impracticable  to  secure  sub- 
mission to  any  other  law.  Nevertheless,  the  serious 
question  returns  upon  us — Is  this  the  law,  or  this 
the  principle  recognised  as  the  basis  of  church 
polity  in  the  New  Testament?  We  are  compelled 
to  answer — it  is  not. 

That  our  Lord,  in  a  sovereign  manner,  elected 
and  empowered  every  one  of  those  who  were  to  pro- 


120  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM* 

mulgate  bis  religion  is  not  questioned.  The  apos- 
tles assume  the  same  irresponsible  authority  in  re- 
lation to  such  as  they  acknowledged  in  the  character 
of  religious  teachers  ;  and  while  tiiey  freely  admitted, 
and  indeed  invited,  the  popular  concurrence  on  all 
occasions  where  common  or  secular  interests  were  in- 
volved, and  especially  in  every  pecuniary  transac- 
tion, yet  reserved  to  themselves  the  power  to  create 
spiritual  officers.  For  aught  that  appears  in  the  CA- 
NONICAL WRITINGS,  no  other  mode  of  appointment 
found  room  in  the  Church;  and  the  assumption  that 
the  apostles  exercised  this  power  in  virtue  of  their 
extraordinary  commission,  and  on  the  ground  of  their 
miraculous  knowledge  of  hearts,  is  purely  gratuitous. 
So  it  may  have  been  ;  but  we  have  no  evidence  in 
support  of  the  allegation. 

The  apostolic  epistles  abound,  as  well  in  exhorta- 
tions addressed  to  the  people,  urging  the  duty  of  sub- 
mission to  their  spiritual  rulers,  as  in  admonitions 
given  to  the  officers  of  the  Church,  and  pressing  upon 
them  the  temper  and  conduct,  the  fidelity,  the  purity, 
the  impartiality,  and  the  meekness,  which  become 
their  station.  We  find  also,  in  the  three  clerical 
epistles  of  Paul,  addressed  to  two  of  the  individuals 
whom  he  had  empowered  to  set  in  order,  and  to  keep 
in  order  the  Churches,  specific  instructions  concern- 
ing the  appointment  and  government  of  spiritual 
officers,  both  higher  and  lower.  All  this  accords  well 
wiih  the  supposition  that  the  clerical  authority  and 
function  springs  from  within  itself,  and  is  irrespective 
of  the  popular  will.  But  if  the  congregational  and 
democratic  theory,  or  any  principle  allied  to  it,  be 
the  true  one,  or  if  any  such  principle  had  been  con- 
templated as  what  was  to  succeed  to  the  then  extraor- 
dinary apostolic  authorit}',  we  cannot  but  expect,  on 
so  capital  and  momentous  a  subject,  that  necessarjr 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  121 

instructions,  and  a  formal  warranty  too,  would  have 
been  very  distinctly  conveyed  to  tlie  parties  who  were 
to  exercise  powers  so  extensive,  so  delicate,  and  so 
difficult.  On  various  questions  of  discipline,  christian 
societies,  at  large,  are  addressed  by  St.  Paul,  and  in- 
structed what  course  to  pursue  :  the  Brotherhood 
is  told  how  it  should  act.  But  what  article  of  dis- 
cipline can  be  compared  in  importance  with  the  seri- 
ous duty,  devolving  so  often  upon  our-modern  con- 
gregational Churches,  of  looking  out  for  themselves 
and  of  instating  their  bishops  ?  Again,  can  a  Church, 
at  any  time,  be  called  to  discharge  a  part  so  serious 
as  is  that  of  dismissing,  and  perhaps  of  degrading  its 
bishop?  yet,  for  the  acquittal  of  none  of  these  per- 
plexing duties,  does  a  Church  receive  one  word  of 
guidance,  or  one  syllable  of  authentication,  from  the 
inspired  writings.  Let  it  be  atlirmed  that  all  neces- 
sary instructions  on  svrh  points  may  be  gathered  by 
fair  inference  from  the  general  spirit  of  Christianity. 
Be  it  so  ;  only  let  it  then  be  clearly  understood,  that 
the  first  principle  of  modern  Congregationalism  rests, 
not  on  scripture  precept  and  precedent,  but  upon  ge- 
neral and  vague  inferences. 

If  the  apostolic  writings  aflford  a  single  particle  of 
evidence,  direct  or  indirect,  in  favour  of  tlie  doctrine 
of  the  popular  origination,  or  popular  control  of  the 
clerical  office,  let  it  be  produced.  If  not,  even  if  we 
should  admit  by  accommodation,  the  propriety  of 
some  sort  of  popular  influence  in  this  behalf,  we  must 
do  so  manifestly  in  contradiction  to  the  principle  of 
the  sufficiency,  and  the  sole  authority  of  Scripture 
in  matters  of  church  polity.  The  two  principles  of 
modern  democracy  in  church  affairs,  and  of  an  un» 
bending  adherence  to  the  letter  of  Scripture  in  what 
relates  to  worship  and  government,  are  abhorrent, 
the  one  of  the  other. 

Meanwhile,  calm  and  well  informed  men,  indif- 
11 


122  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

ferent  to  actual  interests,  must  halt  on  the  threshold 
when  summoned  to  enter  the  Church,  if  the  ultimate 
power  therein  is  alleged  to  rest  with  a  sacerdotal  or- 
der, self-evolved,  and  irresponsible.  Will  human 
nature  well  bear  to  be  so  far  trusted  ?  Does  even 
Christianity  afford  any  safeguard  against  the  natural 
abuses  and  encroachments  that  attend  insulated  and 
undefined  spiritual  authority?  These  proper  and 
anxious  inquiries  lead  tiie  way  to  our  next  rudiment 
of  Church  Polity,  and  which  presents  an  adequate 
balance  to  sacerdotal  powers. 

VII.  Christianity,  assuredly,  is  neither  despotic  in 
its  spirit,  nor  could  it  generate  despotisms,  in  any 
case,  if  allowed  to  retain  that  rudiment  which,  in  the 
primitive  Churches,  operated  as  a  natural  counter- 
poise to  clerical  authority.  This  counterpoise  was 
the  participation  of  the  people — the  7rx^6og,  in  church 
deliberations,  and  church  acts ;  and  especially  the 
scope  allowed  to  popular  agency  in  every  punitive 
exercise  of  discipHne.  An  effective  check  is  this  to 
what  might  otherwise  be  formidable  in  sacerdotal 
power.  So  long  as  it  is  fully  and  freely  admitted 
clerical  authority  may  safely  reach  a  high  and  salu- 
tary point ;  but  remove  or  restrict  it,  and  then  our 
alternative  is  either  to  give  room  to  the  pride  and  ar- 
rogance of  priests,  or  to  cashier  the  ministers  of  reli- 
gion of  all  dignity  and  power  (as  an  order)  and  to 
deny  them  the  greater  part  of  their  useful  influence. 
The  presence  and  active  operation  of  this  popular 
element  in  church  affairs  is  not  a  whit  less  necessary 
as  the  guarantee  of  the  power  of  the  clergy,  than  as 
the  safeguard  of  the  liberties  of  the  people. 

As  the  primitive  Churches  knew  nothing  of  that 
ministerial  subserviency  which  belongs  to  our  modern 
congregational  communities,  so  neither  did  they  ad- 
mit that  fatal  separation  between  clergy  and  laity 


RUDIMENTS    OF    CHURCH    POLITY.  123 

which  destroys  all  effective  reciprocity  betvveea  the 
two,  leaves  to  the  former  a  perilous,  nay  ruinous 
irresponsibility,  and  treats  the  latter  as  the  passive, 
or  rather  the  dead  subjects  of  clerical  operations.  On 
this  point  almost  every  existing  Christian  communi- 
ty has  moved  far  from  the  foundation  on  which  alone 
the  Church  can  be  securely  reared  : — some,  throw- 
ing the  sovereign  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
people  ;  while  otiiers  have  left  it,  unbalanced,  with 
the  clergy.  Christianity  may  be  expected  to  regain 
its  energy  when,  to  the  clergy  is  restored  that  inde- 
pendent authority  and  dignity,  as  the  ministers  of 
Heaven,  with  v/hich  they  may  safely  be  intrusted, 
so  long  as  they  yield  to  the  apostolic  counterpoise  of 
popular  influence. 

In  every  age  it  has  been  by  gathering  themselves 
into  clusters,  apart  from  the  people,  by  sitting  in 
conclave,  with  the  doors  barred  against  the  laity,  and 
by  concerting  measures,  not  in  the  church,  but  in 
chambers  and  closets,  that  the  ministers  of  religion 
have  converted  the  Gospel  into  a  system  of  tyranny 
and  an  engine  of  crueltyo  The  history  of  Spiritual 
Despotism  hinges  upon  this  divulsion  of  the  elements 
of  Church  Power.  An  impious  and  fatal  divorce  of 
what  God  had  joined — a  divorce  craftily  effected  by 
the  clergy,  was  the  principal  means  of  introducing 
and  of  establishing  all  corruptions  and  all  usurpa- 
tions. 

The  people,  whether  in  mass,  or  by  representa- 
tion, being  present,  and  taking  a  share  in  church 
proceedings,  and  being  allowed  a  real,  not  a  nominal 
agency  in  chmch  acts—knowing  whatever  is  pro- 
posed, and  concurring  in  whatever  is  determined, 
there  will  no  longer  be  danger  in  granting  to  the 
clergy  as  high  and  free  an  authority  as  Christian 
men  could  wish  to  exercise,  or  safely  to  themselves 
sustain. 

The  apostolic  societies  were,  in  the  fullest  sense  of 


124  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

the  word.  Communities  ;  not  indeed  chaotic  assem- 
blages, liable  to  the  contusions  that  attend  unrestrain- 
ed democracy,  but  organized  bodies,  constituted  of 
head,  and  lieart,  and  members,  concurring,  accord- 
ing to  their  several  powers,  in  the  same  acts,  and 
bound  together  by  a  vital  sympathy.  The  principle 
of  apostolic  cluirch  polity  would,  as  we  assume,  have 
been  violated  in  an  equal  degree,  either  by  any  at- 
tempt of  the  people  to  bring  their  pastors  into  a  sub- 
servient condition,  as  their  stipendiaries  ;  or  by  any 
endeavour  of  the  clergy  to  sustain  and  extend  their 
prerogatives  by  secret  conspiracy.  The  two  great 
rudiments  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  namely,  the  sacer- 
dotal origin  of  sacerdotal  powers  ;  and  the  presence 
and  concurrence  of  the  people  in  acts  of  discipline, 
and  in  tlie  enactment  of  regulations,  and  especially 
in  the  management  of  pecuniary  affairs,  are  corre- 
lative, and  the  worst  evils  arise  from  parting  them, 
or  from  practically  nullifying  either.  The  one  is 
not  worth  contending  for,  apart  from  the  other;  and 
the  one  is  essential  to  the  complete  operation  of  the 
other.  Whichever  parly  aims  to  compromise  the  pri- 
vileges and  rights  of  the  other,  is  blind  to  its  own. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  first  of  these  two 
principles :  and  nothing  is  easier  than  to  establish 
the  second.  As  matter  of '^istory  the  fact  of  the  con- 
currence of  the  mass  ot  the  Church  in  deliberations 
and  decisions  stands  on  the  face  of  the  apostolic  wri- 
tings, The  multitude  came  together,  and  took  their 
part  in  the  most  important  consultations  :  to  the  mul- 
titude was  referred  the  election  of  officers  charged 
with  the  secondary  affairs  of  the  community :  the 
brethren  held  up  the  hand,  although  they  did  not  la*y 
the  hand  :  the  %f<^oroy/i«  was  allowed  them,  where 
the  ;t;fi/)o^fe-/o6  was  reserved  to  the  presbyters  and 
bishops.  Public  business  was  indeed  arranged,  pro- 
pounded, and  carried  through  by  Public  Persons  ;  but 
still  it  was  carried  as  public  business.     The  niachi- 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  125 

nation  in  closets  of  interests  that  ought  to  be  openly- 
discussed,  is  a  treason  against  the  community  ;  nor 
was  any  such  secret  management  admitted  even  by 
the  divinely  commissioned  apostles. 

But  the  tenor  and  the  terms  of  the  apostolic  epistles 
afford  the  most  satisfactory  evidence  on  the  point  of 
the  liberal  and  open  constitution  of  the  first  Churches. 
These  epistles,  fraught  with  various  and  specific  ad- 
vices on  questions  of  discipline  and  government,  are 
addressed  comprehensively  and  directly  to  the  mass 
of  believers  ; — not  to  the  people  through  the  medium 
of  their  rulers.  The  pastors  are  indeed  mentioned, 
but  this  mention  of  them  distinctly  implies  that  the 
writer,  in  each  instance,  had  his  eye  immediately 
fixed  upon  the  people.  Were  then  the  people — the 
believers  at  large,  the  mere  subjects  of  church  power  ? 
did  they  constitute  an  inert  mass,  upon  which  sacer- 
dotal functions  were  to  be  exercised  ?  Common  sense 
is  insulted  by  any  such  supposition  ;  historic  evidence 
is  outraged  by  afl[irming  it  to  have  been  the  fact. 
The  Church,  with  its  teachers  and  pastors,  was  one 
living  body,  various  in  its  functions,  but  full  of  energy 
and  action. 

The  course  recommended  or  enjoined,  on  various 
occasions,  by  St.  Paul,  and  the  public  measures  which 
he  advises  to  be  pursued,  were  plainly  supposed  to 
issue  from  the  breadth  of  the  Church  ;  and  not  to 
be  promulgated  from  the  closet  of  an  ohgarchy.  Our 
inference  in  this  instance  has  precisely  the  same 
strength  as  that  which  we  draw  in  favour  of  the  in- 
dependence of  the  clerical  function  from  the  fact,  that 
all  the  instructions  bearing  directly  and  explicitly 
upon  the  appointment,  investiture,  character,  and 
behaviour  of  the  rulers  of  the  Church,  are  conveyed 
to  INDIVIDUALS  (uot  to  Churches)  and  these  beings 
such  as  had  received  an  irresponsible  authority,  from 
an  irresponsible  source. 

11* 


12^  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

There  will  be  no  end  to  the  nice  distinctions  and 
the  subtei  fuges  resorted  to  by  interested  controvertiets  ; 
nor  must  \  'e  expect  to  convince  such  persons.  But 
men  who  respect  themselves,  and  who  have  learned 
to  exercise  i  vigorous  common  sense,  in  common 
affairs,  will  hold  it  certain,  in  all  cases,  that  those 
who  are  ine  tructed  how  to  perform  particular  duties, 
are  actually  the  parties  looked  to  for  the  discharge  of 
such  dutiei.  Exhortations  and  commands  are  not 
cross-direcled  by  plain  and  upright  men.  A  and  B 
are  not  told  in  what  manner  X  and  Z  should  acquit 
themselves  of  their  parts.  But  in  the  apostolic  epistles 
it  is  the  people  at  large  who  are  instructed  on  what 
principles  to  exercise  church  discipline,  and  how  to 
arrange  the  secular  interests  of  the  society.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  not  the  people  at  large,  but  two  indi- 
viduals of  high  ecclesiastical  rank,  who  are  charged 
with  whatever  relates  to  the  selection,  investment, 
and  control  of  teachers  and  rulers.  Even  those  offi- 
cers in  the  choice  of  whom  the  people  exercised  a  dis- 
cretion, are  classed  with  purely  clerical  persons  in 
these  instructions,  inasmuch  as  it  was  not  without  the 
^etpoha-U  and  approval  of  the  primate  that  they 
were  to  be  instated. 

We  conclude  then,  that  a  cordial  and  effective 
admission  or  the  people — meaning,  the  members  of 
congregaticns,  to  a  participation  in  the  management 
of  church  affairs,  and  especially  in  the  infliction  of 
chastisements,  and  in  the  control  of  pecuniary  inte- 
rests, is  an  essential  and  most  important  rudiment  of 
church  polity. 

In  relation  to  the  source  and  derivation  of  the  cleri- 
cal function,  we  have  been  compelled  to  charge  the 
dissenting  communities  of  this  country  with  a  capital 
and  very  serious  departure  from  apostolic  principle 
and  practice.  We  are  now  bound,  in  justice  to  our 
argument  (and  for  the  approval  of  our  impartiality) 


RUDIiVtENfS  OP  CHURCH  POLITY.  127 

to  assert  the  equally  important  fault  of  tlie  English 
Church,  in  excluding  its  members  at  large  from  that 
just  influence  which  the  same  apostohc  practice  and 
principle  allows  to  them. 

Vin.  We  have  then  before  us  the  constituents  of 
a  chi  rchj  and  their  reciprocal  influence.  It  only  re- 
mains to  inquire,  what  shculd  be  the  relative  position 
of  those  who  exercise  the  various  public  functions  of 
the  body.  The  following  considerations  seem  pro- 
per to  be  premised  to  such  an  inquiry. 

1st.  It  should  be  admitted  that  the  informatioQ 
furnished  in  the  writings  of  the  New  Testament  con- 
cerning the  forms  of  government  prevailing  in  the 
apostolic  Church  is  scanty,  incomplete,  informal,  to 
some  extent  ambiguous,  and  such,  in  a  word,  as  ex- 
cludes the  supposition  that  any  definite  polity  was 
intended  to  be  authoritatively  conveyed  to  the  Church 
universal.  Or  let  it  be  granted  that  the  few  who  are 
fully  and  familiarly  conversant  with  ecclesiastical 
antiquity,  may  arrive  at  a  clear  conviction  that  such 
and  such  was  the  economy  of  the  first  churches,  or 
of  most  of  them  ;  yet  the  Scripture  Evidence 
alone,  and  unaided  by  learned  researches,  can  never 
be  so  presented  to  the  mass  of  Christians  as  to  com- 
mand their  assent  to  this  or  that  system,  as  apostolic 
and  unchangeable. 

2dly.  The  information  we  gather,  in  part  from  the 
incidental  allusions  of  the  canonical  writers,  and  in 
part  from  the  extant  remains  of  early  Christian 
literature,  suggests  the  belief  (in  itself  probable)  that, 
under  the  eye,  and  with  the  approbation  or  permis- 
sion of  the  apostles,  diflferent  modes  of  church  govern- 
ment prevailed  in  different  countries.  It  is,  we  say, 
perfectly  credible,  and  pretty  nearly  established  as  a 
fact,  that  a  certain  ecclesiastical  constitution  which 
might  well  accord  with  the  national  sentiments  and 


128  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTfSM. 

civil  usages  of  the  Christians  of  Syria,  or  Persia,  or 
the  provinces  of  Hellenic  Asia,  might  be  altogether 
repugnant  to  the  feelings  of  the  Churches  of  Greece 
proper,  of  Italy,  Gaul,  or  northern  Africa.  That  sort 
of  superstitious,  servile,  and  despotic  inflexibility 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  arrogant  churchman  of 
later  ages,  assuredly  was  not  the  temper  of  the  first 
promulgators  of  the  Gospel.  St.  Paul,  especially, 
had  learned  that  high  wisdom  which  is  at  once  im- 
movable in  principle,  and  compliant  in  circumstan- 
tials. The  whole  analogy  of  his  behaviour,  and  of 
his  sentiments,  contradicts  the  supposition  that  he 
went  about,  carrying  an  iron  model  of  ecclesiastical 
government,  from  country  to  country. 

3dly.  We  must  be  especially  aware  of  those  fal- 
lacies in  argument  that  arise  from  placing  reliance 
upon  either  the  etymological  import,  or  the  after- 
wards acquired  and  specific  sense  of  certain  terms  of 
oflfice  ;  since  it  is  manifest  that  these  terms  are  used 
convertibly  throughout  the  New  Testament,  and  are 
interchanged  with  a  latitude  and  a  freedom  that  does 
not  at  all  accord  with  the  definitions  and  assumptions 
of  modern  controvertists.  Modern  controversies,  on 
church  government,  have  been  rendered  indecisive 
by  the  fault,  common  to  all  parties,  of  contending 
for  and  against  names  ;  instead  of  inquiring  con- 
cerning facts.  What  avails  it,  for  example,  to  prove 
that  the  pastors  of  single  and  small  congregations 
were  called  bishops  ?  The  only  question  of  signifi- 
cance is  this,  whether,  when  there  were  ten,  fifty,  or 
a  hundred  congregations  in  a  city,  each  was  an  in- 
sulated and  independent  Church,  having  its  bishop, 
and  its  exclusive  organization,  or  whether  they  did 
not,  m  all  such  cases,  constitute  one  Church,  go- 
verned by  a  single  president  (call  him  what  we 
may)  who  bare  rule  over  all  the  clerical  persons 
ministering  to  those  several  congregations  1     If  we 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITV.  129 

find  in  fact  at  Jerusalem,  at  Antioch,  at  Ephesus,  at 
Alexandria,  at  Rome,  some  -such  economy  as  this, 
and  always  one  Church,  comprisins^  many  con- 
gregations, directed  by  one  angel,  or  chief,  those  who 
choose  may  argue  the  question — what  was  his 
title  ? 

The  apostles  evidently  employ  terms  of  office  rather 
in  the  power  of  their  abstract  meaning,  than  as  the 
fixed  and  conventional  designations  of  established 
functionaries.  The  apostles  call  themselves  presby- 
ters and  deacons  too.  Our  Lord  is  declared  to  be 
both  Bishop  and  Deacon.  Presbyters  are  bishops ; 
and  bisbops  are  teachers  and  helpers;  and  a  Primate 
is  exhorted,  in  one  place,  to  do  the  work  of  an  evan- 
gelist, and  in  another,  fully  to  discharge  the  office  of 
a  deacon.  There  can  be  no  conclusiveness  in  an 
argument  that  assumes  a  fixed  appropriation  of  titles 
when  no  such  appropriation  had  taken  place. 

What  is  highly  important  to  observe,  is  this,  that 
the  liquid  or  convertible  state  in  which  we  find  the 
designations  of  office  in  the  New  Testament,  indi- 
cates clearly  the  yet  undefined  condition  of  the  func- 
tions to  which  such  titles  are,  in  that  promiscuous 
manner,  applied.  It  is  true,  in  relation  to  civil,  as 
well  as  to  sacred  dignities,  or  public  duties,  that  the 
interchangeable  application  of  titles,  affords  a  sure 
guide  to  the  circumstances  of  the  community  within 
which  it  prevails,  A  steady  and  exactly  defined 
constitution  of  offices  never  fails  to  be  quickly  follow- 
ed by  a  well  marked  usage,  assigning  certain  desig- 
nations to  certain  functionaries ;  to  disturb  which 
becomes  an  affi'ont  to  dignities,  and  is  instantly  re- 
sented. Not  even  the  most  heedless  writers,  in  any 
age,  fail  to  pay  respect  to  such  verbal  den^.arcations 
of  honour.  The  name  of  office  is  known  to  be  an 
important  preservative  of  the  frerogatives  of  office  ; 
and  when  once  such  prerogatives  have  come  to  h© 


130  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

settled  and  distinctly  ascertained,  the  several  names 
that  mark  the  gradations  of  rank  cease  to  be  con- 
vertible. On  this  rule  we  conclude,  with  some  de- 
gree of  assurance,  that,  during  the  apostolic  age, 
forms  of  government  and  the  distribution  of  public 
services,  were  still  open  to  many  variations  and  ano- 
malies. No  writer  of  the  age  of  Cyprian  uses  the 
words  oishop,  presbyter,  and  deacon,  so  indetermin- 
ately or  so  abstractedly  as  do  the  apostles. 

From  these  premises  we  draw  an  inference  decisive 
against  all  high  and  exclusive  pretensions,  on  which 
side  soever  they  may  be  advanced  ;  and  against  ar- 
rogance and  dogmatism,  whatever  model  of  pohty  it 
may  profess  to  maintain.  Nevertheless,  it  may  be 
true  that  the  concurrent  testimony  of  Christian  anti- 
quity preponderates  largely  on  the  side  of  a  certain 
system  ;  and  moreover,  that  this  same  system  proves 
itself,  if  we  might  so  term  it,  to  be  the  spontaneous 
form  of  external  Christianity,  whenever  the  natural 
course  of  tilings  (during  a  prosperous  condition  of  the 
Church)  is  not  interfered  with  by  special  opinions  or 
prejudices. 

We  have  said  that  a  certain  model  of  church  go- 
vernment presents  itself  as  the  spontaneous  form  of 
external  Cljristianity,  where  Christianity  flourishes, 
and  spreads ;  and  we  trace  the  development  of  na- 
tural and  universal  causes  in  the  following  man- 
ner : — 

Christianity  is  in  an  enfeebled  or  a  corrupted  state, 
or  it  must  be  labouring  under  extraordinary  external 
difficulties,  in  every  case,  where  it  fails  to  diflfuse  it- 
self on  all  sides  from  the  centre  where  it  may  first  be 
planted.  Wherever  it  does  not  so  spread,  inquiry 
ought  to  be  made  for  the  cause  of  obstruction ;  and 
doubtless  it  may  be  discovered.  The  Gospel,  in  the 
hands  of  its  first  promulgators,  did  so  spread  ;  and  it 
may  fairly  be  assumed,  that  the  miraculous  powers 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  131 

at  the  command  of  the  apostles  and  their  colleagues, 
did  not  much  more  than  counterbalance  the  external 
opposition  it  had  to  encounter.  In  all  the  large  cities 
of  the  Roman  world  the  converts  to  Christianity 
were  numerous,  and  in  some  amounted  to  several 
thousand  persons  ;  and  even  in  smaller  cities  and 
towns  they  were  more  than  could  assemble  in  any 
one  synagogue,  or  chamber  of  a  private  house.  In 
all  such  cities  or  towns  there  were  therefore  several 
congregations,  statedly  rssembUng  for  public  worship 
in  such  places  as  converiencs  might  dictate. 

This  question  then  presens  itself,  and  must  needs 
be  determined — What  v/as  tiie  rule  and  principle  of 
the  relationship  subsisting  among  these  congrega- 
tions, and  what  the  system  cf  organization,  if  any, 
which  combined  the  clergy  oBciating  in  these  assem- 
blies ?  This  question,  or  these  two  questions,  are  in 
no  way  to  be  evaded  ;  and  the  determination  of  them 
carries,  substantially,  the  question  of  ecclesiastical 
polity.  The  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  Gospel  de- 
mand, and  its  diflfusion  and  maintenance  as  an  ex- 
ternal constitution  require,  that  all  Christians  within 
the  walls  of  a  city,  or  within  the  circuit  of  a  district, 
should  recognise  each  other,  as  such,  and  should  co- 
operate to  promote  their  common  welfare.  They  are 
in  fact  related  by  juxta-position  ;  it  is  impossible  that 
they  should  be  ignorant  of  each  other's  existence,  as 
Christians:  they  are  therefore  bound  to  maintain 
fellowship  ;  or  if  they  neglect  to  do  so,  nothmg  can 
preserve  them  from  running  into  rivalry  and  faction. 
Unless  molten  into  one  mass,  and  unless  commingled 
in  every  possible  manner,  by  interchange  of  offices, 
the  strong  natural  tendency  to  jealousy  and  division 
among  separate  corporations,  will  quickly  and  cer- 
tainly come  into  play,  to  the  infinite  damage  of  all, 
and  the  dishonour  of  religion. 

The  span  of  a  roof,  or  the  number  of  sittings  be- 


132  SPIRITUAL,    DESPOTISM. 

tween  one  wall  of  a  chapel  and  its  opposite,  are  acci- 
dental r.nd  inconsiderable  circamstanceSj  altogether 
unworthy  lo  be  taken  any  account  of  when  we  are 
estimating  the  force  and  compass  of  those  motives 
which  should  give  life  to  Christian  association.  No 
rule  can  be  more  whimsical  or  arbitrary,  and  none 
much  more  injurious  or  illiberal,  than  that  which 
measures  a  Church  by  the  size  of  a  chamber  or  a 
chapel.  The  energy  and  expansiveness  of  Christian 
love  disdains  and  resents  any  such  mathematical  re- 
striction. A  Church  is  the  organized  Christianity  of 
a  certain  circle  or  district,  within  which  actual  com- 
bination and  intercourse  may  take  place.  The  tem- 
per and  the  usages  generated  by  Congregationalism 
have  greatly  obscured  the  glory  of  the  Gospel,  as  a 
principle  of  extensive  fellowship. 

Whatever  may  be  the  advantages,  or  the  enjoy- 
ments, or  the  duties  that  attach  to  religious  combina- 
tion as  subsisting  within  the  walls  of  a  chapel,  attach 
also  to  religious  combination,  such  as  it  may  subsist 
within  the  walls  of  a  city  ;  and  again,  within  the 
boundaries  of  a  province.  On  the  other  hand,  what- 
ever evils  accrue  from  the  admission  of  partial  inter- 
ests and  factions  within  a  single  society,  accrue  also, 
and  even  in  a  more  fatal  degree,  from  the  rivalry 
and  insulation  of  neighbouring  societies.  Moreover, 
as  incidental  acquaintance  and  casual  friendship  is 
not  church  communion  among  individuals  ;  so  nei- 
ther does  the  unorganized  and  ungoverned  corres- 
pondence of  neighbouring  societies  satisfy  the  condi- 
tions, or  secure  the  advantages  of  church  order. 
The  principle,  both  of  love  and  of  order,  which  ap- 
pUes  to  three  hundred  Christians,  applies,  by  the 
game  reason,  and  with  the  same  force,  to  thre3  thou- 
sand, or  to  thirty  thousand  Christians. 

Christianity  tends  always  to,  and  demands,  social 
organization.     Where  there  is  no  organization  there 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  133 

is  no  Christianity ;  where  organization  is  imperfect 
or  casual)  there  Christianity  is  feeble  or  factious  ;  and 
if  there  be  good  reason  for  securing  any  order,  or  for 
instituting  any  government,  on  religious  grounds, 
there  is  the  same  reason  for  effecting  the  most  per- 
fect order,  and  for  establishing  the  most  finished 
system  of  goverment  possible.  Dangers,  it  is  true, 
attend  all  systems  of  combination  ;  but  still  greater 
dangers  attach  to  the  want  of  con'bination.  Evils 
are  not  averted,  but  only  exchanged,  by  foregoing 
the  benefits  of  an  extensi/e  economy,  or  polity. 
Christianity  is  not  merely  lov^and  peace,  but  a  bond 
of  love  and  peace.  To  profess  the  love,  and  to  reject 
the  bond,  is  deemed,  in  all  cases,  a  subterfuge. 
There  are  those  who  say,  ''  May  we  not  have  the 
affection  and  the  sanctity  of  marriage  without  the 
knot?"  No  such  license  is  permitted  in  any  well 
ordered  community.  Whoever  refuses  to  be  bound 
to  a  good  and  virtuous  condition,  harbours  contempt 
of  the  principle  which  sanctions  the  obligation. 

We  assume  then  that  Christians,  near  to  each 
other,  are  not  to  constitute  many  Churches,  but  one 
Church — let  the  chapels  in  which  they  happen  to 
assemble  be  five,  or  five  hundred.  As  a  matter  of 
history,  no  question  can  be  raised  respecting  the  com- 
bination of  Christians  in  cities  and  districts,  during 
the  primitive  ages.  We  hear  little  or  nothing  of  the 
unimportant  circumstance  of  the  particular  buildings 
or  chambers  in  which  congregations  met ;  but  we 
know,  beyond  doubt,  that,  untiljhe  seamless  vesture 
of  Christ  was  rent  by  angry  spirits,  the  brethren  of 
of  every  city,  and  its  suburbs,  formed  one  communion, 
and  ate  of  one  loaf,  and  were  led  and  ruled  by  one 
staff.  There  was  one  centre  and  one  circumference  ; 
or  rather,  one  fold  and  one  shepherd.  Our  modern 
chapel-economy,  which  makes  each  congregation  a 
church,  with  its  bishop,  assuredly  was  not  known  at 
Jerusalem,  at  Caesarea,  at  Antioch,  at  Carthage,  at 
12 


134  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

Alexandria.  There  were  indeed  the  Churches  of 
Galatia ;  and  there  was  a  Church  in  a  house,  where 
that  house  could  contain  all  the  faithful  of  the  vici- 
nity ;  but  not  so  where  converts  were  reckoned  by 
thousands  or  myriads.  Congregationalism,  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  term,  had  place  wherever  Chris- 
tianity was  hemmed  in,  or  wherever  it  had  become 
inert ;  but  not  where  the  word  of  the  Lord  "  ran 
and  was  glorified  ;"  or  where  "  believers  were  added 
to  the  Church  daily — multitudes,  both  of  men  and 
women." 

But  how  did  the  primitive  combination  of  Chris- 
tians, within  cities  and  districts,  affect  the  relation- 
ship and  internal  organization  of  the  clergy  ?  or  how 
must  such  a  combination,  necessary  and  proper  as  it 
is,  affect  churcli  government  in  any  age?  The 
clergy  are,  by  such  combinations,  brought  into  society 
as  a  body,  and  nothing  can  then  avert  (nor  should 
we  wish  it  to  be  averted)  the  establishment  of  some 
species  of  hierarchical  subordination.  An  incidental, 
xnd  yet  highly  important  consequence  of  this  muni- 
cipal organization,  in  the  ancient  Church,  was  the 
interchange  of  the  services  of  teachers  among  the 
congregations  of  a  diocese.  It  was  not  imagined  that 
the  talentt'  and  accomplishments  of  a  single  mind, 
even  of  the  most  gifted,  could  supply  sufficient  move- 
ment and  instruction  to  the  same  people,  week  after 
week,  and  year  after  year.  Our  modern  usages,  in 
this  behalf,  involve  a  very  serious  practical  error. 
To  leave  a  congregation  submerged  in  the  stagnant 
pool  of  a  single  mind,  for  half  a  century,  can  never 
consist  with  its  progress  in  knowledge,  or  with  its 
vitality.  Nothing  perhaps  has  more  benumbed  Chris- 
tianity, or  prevented  its  extension. 

Again ;  this  same  municipal  association  of  the 
people  and  clergy,  effectively  cut  off  the  dependence 
of  the  clergy,  individually,  upon  the  leaders  of  single 
congregations.     The  church  fund  did  indeed  accrue 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  135 

from  voluntary  contributions  ;  but  it  arose  from  a 
broad  surface ;  and  it  reached  indirectly  those  who 
received  it.  The  people  had  no  opportunity  given 
them  to  modify  doctrine,  to  soften  morality,  or  to 
avert  discipline,  by  the  tacit  efficacy  of  their  power  as 
the  paymasters  of  their  teachers. 

Once  more  ;  the  same  economy  broke  up,  in  great 
degree,  that  too  natural  tendency  of  things,  which 
places  the  clergy  of  a  vicinity  in  opposition,  the  one 
to  the  other,  as  chiefs  of  companies,  and  as  rival  can- 
didates for  popular  favour.  Wholly  to  preclude  this 
most  unhappy  tendency  is  indeed  impracticable  on 
any  scheme  ;  yet  we  should  certainly  avoid  a  system 
which,  in  a  direct  and  powerful  manner,  stimulates 
personal  ambition.  Neighbouring  congregations, 
founded  on  the  congregational  principle,  hardly  avoid 
grudges  and  disagreements,  transmitted  often  from 
one  generation  to  another,  like  the  feuds  of  Arabian 
hordes.  Then  again,  the  spirit  of  this  system,  irri- 
tated by  a  false  jealousy  on  the  subject  of  the  rights 
of  conscience,  impels  division  and  separation,  often 
on  trivial  grounds.  Dislikes  or  predilections,  per- 
sonal bickerings,  and  family  discords,  lead  to  out- 
bursts of  independency  ;  and  thus  a  sect  propagates 
itself,  not  always  by  natural  growth  or  offset,  like  a 
tree ;  but  by  bisection  or  rending,  like  certain  orders 
of  the  animal  kingdom. 

Congregationalism,  a  modern  scheme  altogether, 
sprung,  as  a  reaction,  from  arrogant  prelacy,  and 
the  despotism  of  national  churches.  It  was  the  in- 
evitable product  of  evil  times — the  child  of  oppres- 
sion, and  the  nurseling  of  persecution.  But,  desti- 
tute as  it  is  of  permanent  reasons,  and  unsupported 
by  ancient  authority,  and  incompatible,  as  it  must 
always  be,  with  the  just  and  necessary  influence  of 
the  ministers  of  religion,  it  will  give  way  when  the 
accidental  causes  to  which  it  owes  its  origin  are  re- 
moved.    Deprived  of  the  invigorating  disadvantages 


136  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

of  political  depression,  Congregationalism  will  slide 
into  some  form  of  comprehensive  polity.  When  the 
mass  ceases  to  be  agitated,  crytallization  will  com- 
mence. That  this  system  should  prevail,  and  be  in 
favour,  where  democratic  sentiments  and  tastes  are 
rife,  can  be  no  matter  of  surprise  ;  but  the  fact  of  its 
prevalence,  under  such  circumstances,  surely  must 
not  be  urged  abstractedly,  in  its  recommendation,  or 
as  a  presumption  that  it  is  apostolic. 

The  historical  evidence  to  the  contrary  is  so 
abundant  and  conclusive,  that  no  advocate  is  now 
likely  to  take  up  the  argument  on  the  ground  of 
ancient  practice.  On  any  other  giound  of  expedi- 
ency, let  it  be  defended,  and  adhered  to  by  whoever 
is  so  minded. 

Excluding  then  the  arbitrary  theory  which  in- 
sulates each  congregation,  and  makes  it  a  church  ; 
and  assuming  that  the  communion  and  organization 
of  neighbouring  congregations  necessarily  involves 
some  species  of  hierarchical  combination,  we  have  to 
make  a  choice  between  those  two  schemes  which 
(small  distinctions  overlooked)  embody  the  only 
general  principles  we  can  well  have  recourse  to,  that 
is  to  say,  presbyterianism  and  episcopacy. 

To  decide  between  the  two  on  the  ground  of  the 
ancient  usage  of  the  Church,  might  seem  an  easy 
thing  to  those  who  are  conversant  with  the  Christian 
literature  of  the  first  three  centuries.  The  broad  con- 
current evidence  which  favours  the  episcopal  form  of 
government  may  indeed  (like  every  other  kind  of 
evidence  on  every  sort  of  subject)  be  excepted  against 
in  particulars,  or  be  evaded,  or  rendered  seemingly 
ambiguous,  by  cross  circumstances.  But  still,  those 
who  read  church  history  purely  as  history,  and 
who  care  little  what  present  interest  it  may  favour, 
will  not,  we  imagine,  hesitate  to  conclude  that,  nine 
out  of  ten  of  the  churches  of  the  first  century  were 
episcopal ;  or  that  nineteen  out  of  twenty  of  those  of 


RUBIMEJNTS    OF    CHURCH    POLITY.  137 

the  second  century,  and  almost  all  of  the  third,  ac- 
knowledged this  form  of  government.  The  ortho- 
doxy of  the  great  mass  of  Christians  in  those  ages, 
and  their  episcopacy,  are  two  prominent  facts,  that 
meet  us,  directly  or  implicitly,  on  almost  every  page 
of  the  extant  remains  of  those  times.  The  same 
method  of  quotation,  and  the  same  misrepresentation 
of  evidence,  which  enabled  the  ingenious  author  of 
the  "  History  of  Early  Opinions"  to  throw  a  shade 
over  the  first  of  these  important  facts,  may  enable  an 
opponent  of  episcopacy  to  put  us  in  doubt  concerning 
the  second.  But  no  method  sanctioned  by  truth  and 
honesty  will  do  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  a  choice  were  to  be  made 
between  two  actual  forms  of  presbyterianism  and 
of  episcopciv;^ ,  whereof  the  first  admits  the  laity  to  a 
just  and  apostolic  place  in  the  management  and  ad- 
ministration of  the  Church,  while  the  second  abso- 
lutely rejects  all  such  influence,  and  at  the  same  re- 
tains, for  its  bishops,  the  baronial  dignities,  and  the 
secular  splendour,  usurped  by  the  insolent  hierarchs 
of  the  middle  ages  ;  then  indeed  the  balance  would 
be  one  of  a  difficult  sort ;  and  unless  there  were  room 
to  hope  for  a  coi  rection  and  reform  of  political  pre- 
lacy, an  honest  and  modest  Christian  mind  would  take 
refuge  in  the  substantial  benefits  of  presbyterianism. 

The  two  systems  may  however  very  properly  be 
put  in  comparison  on  abstract  ground  ;  and  then  the 
condition  of  the  two  schemes  will  appear  to  be  very 
nearly  the  same  as  those  which  belong,  in  questions 
of  civil  government,  to  the  monarchical  principle,  as 
compared  with  any  of  those  oligarchical  or  republi- 
can constitutions  that  are  resorted  to  as  safeguards 
against  despotism. 

Monarchy  and  episcopacy  may  be  considered  as 
the  forms  into  which  the  social  system  will  spon- 
taneously subside  :  republicanism  (in  any  of  its 
modes)  and  presbyterianism,  are  those  forms  in  which 
12* 


138  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

we  stop  short,  when  we  do  not  think  it  safe  to  com- 
mit ourselves  to  the  former.  The  latter  is  a  caution- 
ary proceeding,  in  which  certain  acknowledged  ad- 
vantages are  foregone,  on  account  of  the  dangers 
that  attend  the  enjoyment  of  them.  But  could  we 
find  the  means  of  averting  those  perils,  we  should 
then  no.longer  scruple  to  embrace  the  benefits  of  the 
more  natural  and  efficient  method.  A  limited  mon- 
archy, and  a  well  counterpoised  episcopacy,  would 
probably  engage  the  suflfiages  of  the  majority  of 
mankind,  rather  than  any  modification  of  the  aris- 
tocratic, oligarchic,  republican,  or  presbyterian  prin- 
ciple. 

Could  the  highest  wisdom  and  virtue  be  found  in 
individuals,  even  absolute  monarchy  might  well  be 
preferred  to  any  of  the  operose  systems  that  come  in 
its  room.  The  sternest  repubhcan  might  grant  that 
monarchy  is  the  ideal  of  perfection  in  government; — 
assuming  only  the  competency  and  the  disinterested- 
ness of  him  who  is  to  wield  the  sceptre.  We  refiain 
from  this  simple  and  efiicient  mode,  only  because  we 
can  no  where  find  the  man  to  whom  so  much  power 
might  be  confided.  Or,  if  we  could  find  one  such 
man,  we  could  not  hope  to  secure  him  a  successor. 
The  cumbrous  machinery  of  senates,  councils,  minis- 
ters, conventions,  representatives,  is  all  so  much  pre- 
caution— not  abstractedly  good,  yet  indispensable  on 
account  of  the  imperfect  virtue  and  the  imj>erfect 
wisdom  of  men,  singly. 

Those  general  motives  which  would  lead  to  a  pre- 
ference of  monarchy,  do  indeed  hardly  come  into  play 
where  the  interests  in  view  are  of  a  very  simple  kind. 
Commercial  projects  and  pecuniary  advantages  may 
be  well  enough  managed  by  a  committee  ;  but  it  is 
not  so  where  energy,  promptitude,  and  secrecy  are 
peculiarly  demanded  ;  and  still  less  so,  where  high 
sentinienis  are  involved.  In  these  instances,  mon- 
archical government  is  not  to  be  renounced  without 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH  POLITY.  139 

incurring  some  serious,  or  perhaps  fatal  disparage- 
ment. We  may  think  ourselves  safe  from  despotism 
in  the  hands  of  a  committee  ;  but  we  aie  safe  to  no 
purpose.  An  army  is  confided  to  the  head  and  hand 
of  a  single  captain,  not  merely  that  its  movements 
may  have  the  celerity  and  the  consistency  of  purpose 
which  spring  from  a  single  mind  ;  but  because  the 
feeling  and  the  soul  that  are  to  propel  the  mighty 
mass,  demand  a  centre,  in  the  person  of  the  chief, 
and  would  never,  in  an  equal  degree,  converge  upon 
a  council  of  war,  or  a  directory. 

So  long  as  a  nation's  welfare  is  held  to  turn  upon 
nothing  but  its  sheer  arithmetical  interests,  a  com- 
mittee, or  a  senate,  ma}^  properly  have  the  charge  of 
them.  But  if  regard  is  had  to  those  higher  and  more 
impulsive  principles  of  national  greatness  which  are 
in  no  way  to  be  reduced  to  mathematical  computa- 
tion, then  it  is  found,  and  especially  so  in  extensive 
empires,  that  monarchy,  with  its  attendant  splen- 
dours—moiiarchy,  vivified  by  the  free  exercise  of  large 
prerogatives,  and  reared  on  the  shoulders  of  an  illus- 
trious nobihty — monarchy,  not  born  yesterday,  and 
the  creature  of  the  populace,  but  the  child  of  time, 
and  the  favourite  of  history — such  a  monarchy  forms 
a  centre  of  feeling,  and  imparts  movement  to  senti- 
ments of  tije  highest  importance,  and  which  have 
little  play  within  the  dead  machinery  of  a  republic. 

One  class  of  sentiments  being  substituted  for  an- 
other, and  then  the  analogy  will  hold  good  in  relation 
to  the  Church.  That  system  which  places  a  living 
centre  as  the  personal  object  of  reverence  and  love  in 
the  room  of  a  presbytery,  or  a  convocation,  secures 
an  advantage  which,  so  long  as  human  nature  re- 
mains what  it  is,  ought  to  be  esteemed  of  the  highest 
price.  It  is  granted  indeed  that  ecclesiastical  busi- 
ness may  be  in  an  aged  efliciently,  and  economically, 
and  equitably,  by  a  presbytery  ;  but  it  is  affirmed,  on 
the  strength  of  the  known  motives  of  our  nature,  that 


140  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

such  a  management  foregoes  benefits  of  a  refined 
sort,  which  spring  up  around  a  patriarchal  chair. — 
Let  all  the  abuses  and  corruptions  belonging  to  the 
history  of  proud  prelacy  in  all  ages  be  summed 
up,  and  they  will  fail  to  invalidate  the  assertion  that 
a  paternal  sway  vivifies  the  system  over  which  it  is 
exercised  in  a  manner  not  to  be  attained  by  the  go- 
vernment of  a  corporation.  All  we  have  to  do  is  to 
place  the  monarchical  power  under  reasonable  limi- 
tations. 

If  sentiments  of  the  higher  sort  are  important  in 
tilings  secular,  they  are  vastly  more  so  in  things 
spiritual.  Christianity  is  not  a  system  of  palpable 
interest,  to  which  cold  calculation  is  applicable ;  but 
a  -scheme  of  elevated  emotions.  Whatever  calls  forth 
and  gives  play  to  sentiment,  is  presumptively  more 
Christian-like  than  that  which,  with  a  dry  caution, 
merely  guards  against  abuses.  But  we  may  go  fur- 
ther, and  affirm,  that  Christianity,  fully  brought  to 
bear  upon  human  nature,  and  allowed  to  draw  into 
its  service  all  gifts,  and  talents,  natural  and  divine, 
will  spontaneously  tend  to  the  episcopal  model. 

The  current  of  popular  opinion  may  indeed  set 
against  this  cr  that  general  principle ;  and  yet  na- 
ture (we  should  say  the  Divine  Providence)  goes  on 
in  its  course,  notwithstanding  the  temporary  infatua- 
tions of  mankind.  Often  have  the  purest  enjoyments, 
and  the  most  solid  advantages,  been  renounced  by 
the  proud  iin patience,  or  the  sheer  caprices  of  com- 
munities— by  absurd  and  vicious  fashions,  or  sophis- 
tical opinions.  Popular  distastes  then,  afford  no  pre- 
sumption whatever  against  the  system  Vvhich  they 
repugnate.  Episcopacy  may  be  abstractedly  good, 
although  all  the  world  were  to  scout  it. 

Now  any  number  of  religiously  gifted  persons 
being  taken  promiscuously,  we  shall  not  fail  to  find 
among  them  those  marked  inequalities  of  natural 
power;  and  those  decisive  diversities  of  temper  and 


RUDIMENTS  OP  CHURCH  POLITY.  141 

accomplishment,  which  sjieak  loudly  (as  loudly  as 
Nature  ever  speaks)  in  favour  of  a  corresponding  dis- 
tribution of  services,  and  gradation  of  employment 
and  dignities.  To  assign  to  all  the  same  duties,  and 
to  reduce  all  to  the  same  level,  is  to  affront  reason 
and  nature  in  an  egregious  manner.  The  Church 
needs  services  to  be  performed,  not  of  one  kind,  but  of 
many ;  and  nature  actually  provides  persons  adapted 
to  that  diversity  of  service.  Among  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred clerical  persons,  some  will  be  found  whose  bold 
and  ardent  zeal  calls  them  into  the  field  of  labour 
and  danger  in  carrying  the  Gospel  upon  new  ground  ; 
some,  whose  taste  for  intellectual  pursuits,  and  whose 
faculty  of  acquisition,  mark  them  for  the  closet,  or 
for  the  chair  of  catechetical  instruction  :  some,  whose 
powers  of  utterance  and  flow  of  soul  challenge  them 
for  the  pulpit ;  some,  whose  gentleness  of  spirit,  and 
whose  placid  skill,  fit  them  for  the  difficult  task  of  the 
personal  cure  of  souls  ;  some,  whose  philanthropy  and 
self-denying  love  forbid  them  to  be  happy  any  where 
but  among  the  poor  and  wretched ;  and  some,  more- 
over, although  it  be  a  few,  whose  calmness  of  judg- 
ment and  temper,  whose  comprehensiveness  of  un- 
derstanding,  whose  paternal  sentiments  and  personal 
dignity^  declare  them,  without  mistake,  to  be  destined 
to  the  throne  of  government.  We  may  decry  epis- 
copacy ;  hut  the  Lord  sends  us  bishops,  whether  or 
not  we  will  avail  ourselves  of  the  boon. 

The  Church  hasgreatneed  to  use  a  much  more  wise 
economy  of  the  various  talents  committed  to  her  trust 
than  any  existing  religious  community  exercises.  On 
all  sides,  there  is  a  most  wasteful  neglect  of  diversified 
abilities.  Systems  which,  for  the  saving  of  some  fond 
hypothesis,  confound  all  natural  distinctions  of  tempei* 
and  power,  and  enforce  an  equality  of  rank,  and  an 
identity  of  employment  upon  all  official  persons,  ob- 
struct the  common  benefit,  and  hinder  the  progress 
of  the  Gospel,  in  a  degree  not  to  be  calculated,     The 


142  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

economy  of  powers,  and  the  division  of  labour,  is  no 
where  more  imperatively  needed  than  within  the 
Church.  The  stagnant  condition  of  Christianity  in 
countries  where  no  external  opposition  has  stood  in 
its  way,  may,  in  great  measure,  be  attributed  to  this 
same  prodigal  disregard  of  the  dictates  of  nature  and 
common  sense.  To  take  a  band  of  gifted  persons — 
gifted  in  as  many  different  ways  as  there  are  persons, 
and  to  compel  each  to  be  a  bishop,  and  every  thing 
else,  within  his  little  sphere,  is  an  infatuation  not 
matched  in  any  other  department  of  human  affairs. 
The  men  of  this  world  are  indeed  wiser  than  those 
children  of  light  who  adhere  to  so  marvellous  a  prac- 
tical error. 

A  youth,  for  example,  whose  blooming  talents 
might,  in  a  proper  and  subordinate  sphere,  be  highly 
serviceable  to  the  Church,  and  who,  after  a  long 
training  under  his  superiors,  might  rise  to  greater 
things,  is  snatched,  from  his  academic  themes,  is 
made  teacher  of  what  he  has  barely  learned,  and  con- 
stituted ruler  of  affairs  he  cannot  grasp,  is  pronounced 
bishop — and  apostolic  church  order  is  deemed  to  have 
been  realized  ! 

Whatever  may  be  ambiguous  in  the  PauUne 
epistles,  this  surely  is  prominent,  and  unquestionable, 
that  the  apostle — always  remarkable  for  his  prompt 
good  sense,  and  his  respect  for  the  actual  constitu- 
tions of  nature,  recognises  the  diversity  of  gifts  and 
powers,  and  supposes  that  this  diversity,  which 
springs  from  the  Sovereign  Wisdom,  is  to  be  turned 
to  the  best  account  possible  in  promoting  the  great 
and  various  purposes  of  the  Gospel.  We  need  ask  for  no 
other  argument  in  favour  of  episcopacy.  Many  have 
the  gifts  requisite  for  the  ordinary  duties  of  a  Christian 
teacher;  not  a  few  may  beneficially  administer  the 
interests  of  a  small  circle  ;  but  it  is  only  a  few — yet 
there  are  such,  who  can  sustain  the  burden  of  exten- 


RUDIMENTS  OF  CHURCH   POLITY.  143 

sive  government.  The  several  parts  of  our  argument 
converge  here  upon  our  conclusion. — 

If  the  Christians  of  a  city  or  district  are  nume- 
rous, and  constitute  many  congregations,  these  con- 
gregations must  be  combined  under  some  fixed  sys- 
tem of  organization. 

An  organization  of  many  congregations  includes 
the  association  and  co-operation  of  all  clerical  persons 
within  such  a  circle,  or  diocese. 

The  combination  of  clerical  persons,  their  concord, 
the  distribution  of  services,  and  the  apportionment  to 
the  highest  advantage  of  their  various  talents,  de- 
mands a  centre  of  control,  and  an  efficient  adminis- 
trative authority. 

We  may,  it  is  true,  stop  short  in  a  government  by 
a  council,  or  committee,  or  presbytery.  But  we  do 
better  in  following  the  indication  of  nature,  and  the 
analogy  of  civil  affairs,  and  in  placing  the  supreme 
administrative  power  in  the  hands  of  a  Father  and 
Shepherd. 

Such,  as  we  cannot  doubt,  was  the  practice  of  the 
primitive  Churches. 


SECTION  V. 


FIRST  STEPS  OF  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

After  excepting  the  changes  that  distinguish  the 
later  from  the  earher  Judaism  (referred  to  in  a  pre- 
ceding section)  it  may  be  affirmed,  that  Christianity 
is  the  only  rehgion  known  to  history  which  has  un- 
dergone and  survived  extensive  and  essential  altera- 
tions. Other  systems  have  had  their  season,  and 
then  have  been  swept  away,  leaving  hardly  a  wreck 
behind.  But  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament, 
after  passing,  by  insensible  degrees,  into  a  condition 
which  scarcely  retained  a  point  of  resemblance  to  its 
primitive  state,  has  returned  upon  itself,  and  has  re- 
newed its  youth  like  the  phoenix. 

Four  inferences,  and  each  of  them  important,  may 
properly  be  drawn  from  the  fact  of  the  corruption 
and  renovation  of  Christianity  :  the  first  is  an  infer- 
ence confirmatory  of  its  truth ;  inasmuch  as  it  is 
truth  only  that  is  liable  to  corruption;  and  truth  only 
that  possesses  an  intrinsic  vigour,  enabling  it  to  re- 
gain its  pristine  purity.  The  second  of  these  infer- 
ences is  of  a  serious  sort,  and  compels  us  to  admit 
that  the  religion  of  Christ,  although  true  and  divine, 
has  not  been  exempted,  by  the  interposition  of  Hea- 
ven, from  the  operation  of  common  causes;  but  has 
been  left  to  be  corroded,  broken  down,  and  adulterated, 
in  every  way  which  the  passions  and  folly  of  man- 
kind have  prompted.  The  third,  leads  us  to  attribute 
the  corruption  of  Christianity  to  its  real  causes — the 
bad  passions  and  errors  of  its  adherents,  which  were 
at  work  upon  it  from  the  first  moment  of  its  birth  ; 
and  should  preclude  the  mistake  of  fixing  upon  cer- 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  145 

tain  special  events,  in  the  external  history  of  the 
Church,  or  upon  the  agency  of  individualsj  as  in  any 
high  degree  efficient  in  producing  tliat  corruption. 
Our  last  inference  should  inspire  every  Christian  mind 
with  a  salutary  fear,  lest  that  which  has  happened 
once,  and  whi.'h  the  great  principles  of  the  Divine 
government  did  not  prevent,  should  happen  again. 
No  sympton,  perhaps,  would  be  more  ominous  of  the 
recurrence  of  a  seaso  i  of  decay  and  perversion,  than 
a  prevailing  coniideni  e  that  it  is  impossible  it  should 
take  place,  and  that  it  is  idle  and  absurd  to  suppose  it 
in  any  degree  probabl). 

Christianity  received  upon  itself,  at  length,  the  full 
impression  of  the  evil  influences  which  k  came  in  to 
remed}^ ; — in  a  word,  it  became  such  as  human  na- 
ture would  have  it.  In  this  perverted  condition  we 
find  it  at  the  end  of  five  hundred  years,  if  not  earlier. 
In  attempting  to  trace  the  perversion  backwards,  from 
its  mature  to  its  incipient  state,  we  meet  with  no 
marked  stations,  where  we  might  stop  short,  and  say 
— at  this  point  truth  gave  way,  and  error  took  its 
start.  Nothing  decisively  arrests  our  progress  ;  and 
it  becomes  inevitable  to  conclude,  in  the  language  of 
Scripture  itself,  that  the  hidden  mischief  did  '•  alread}^ 
work,"  while  yet  the  apostles  were  planting  the  Gos- 
pel. 

We  hold  it  then  quite  impracticable  to  mark,  with 
any  precision,  the  eras  of  the  growth  of  superstition, 
and  its  attendant  despotism.  In  truth,  the  practice 
of  apportioning  the  revolutions  of  time  into  epochs, 
is  very  delusive,  and  always  proceeds  upon  the 
ground  of  some  hypothesis,  for  the  elucidation  and 
establishment  of  which  an  arbitrary  and  artificial 
form  is  imposed  upon  the  course  of  events.  Such 
distributions  are  seldom,  if  ever,  in  a  just  sense  philo- 
sophical,, and  ought,  if  resorted  to  at  all,  to  le  ad- 
vanced with  due  notice,  as  mere  arrangements,  made 
13 


146  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

for  convenience'  sake,  in  compiling-  history,  and  for 
the  ease  of  ihe  reader's  memory. 

It  is  in  this  way  only  that  we  now  propose  to  mark 
out  stages  and  eras  in  the  history  of  spiritual  des- 
potism ;  not  as  if  its  advances  were  in  fact  w^ell  de- 
fined ;  but  because,  without  some  sort  of  classifica- 
tion, a  subject  so  vast  and  various  is  not  to  be  re- 
viewed ;  and  certainly  not  to  be  spoken  of  in  the 
cursory  manner  which  our  present  plan  demands. 

Our  first  broad  era  is  that  during  which  church 
power  was  making  its  preparations,  and  consolida- 
ting its  means,  and  tending  towards  a  position 
whence  tlie  transition  was  easy  to  the  acme  of  un- 
bounded despotism.  This  period  commences,  it 
must  be  admitted,  in  the  apostolic  age ;  and  may  be 
carried  down,  indefinitely,  into  the  fifth  century.  A 
greater  error  can  hardly  be  fallen  into  than  that  of 
fixing  upon  the  date  of  the  edict  of  Milan,  as  the 
initial  point  in  the  history  of  church  power,  as  if 
usurpations  and  corruptions  tlien  took  their  start;  or 
as  if  the  story  of  sacerdotal  ambition  then  opened  its 
first  chapter.  Popularly  speaking  indeed,  the  con- 
version of  Constantine,  and  of  Ihe  imperial  court, 
presents  itself  as  an  era  in  the  liistory  of  the  Church, 
and  was  no  doubt  an  event  of  signal  importance. 
But  when  we  look  intimately  at  the  state  and  pro- 
gress of  sentiments,  and  the  condition  of  the  several 
orders  within  the  Church,  it  is  found  that  the  eflii- 
cient  causes  of  the  perversion  that  was  going  on, 
were  very  slightly  aftected  by  the  political  change 
that  had  happened  ;  nor  can  we  perceive  that  the 
advance  of  any  corruption  was,  in  consequence,  sen- 
sibly accelerated. 

The  second  epoch  is  that  which  is  characterized 
by  the  critical  oscillation  of  spiritual  power  in  coun- 
terpoise with  the  civil  authority  ; — the  Church,  awak- 
ing to  a  consciousness  of  its  strength,  yet  feciiriiT^  its 
need  of  support,  and  alternately  crying  for  succour, 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  147 

accepting  favours,  and  making  trial  of  its  indepen- 
dent power  to  resist  or  to  subjugate  the  secular 
authority.  On  the  atlier  hand  the  emperors,  em- 
barrassed by  their  fruitless  endeavours  to  compose 
the  feuds  of  the  Church,  and  baffled  in  their  attempts 
to  bring  the  new  and  mysterious  power  into  har- 
mony with  the  movements  of  government,  pursued  a 
devious  course,  undeterminded  by  any  fixed  princi- 
ples, and  therefore  tending,  by  its  very  ambiguity,  to 
favour  the  steady  advances  of  the  Church.  This 
period  may  be  assigned  its  termination  when  the 
breaking  up  of  the  western  empire  left  the  Roman 
hierarchy  to  entrench  and  extend  itself  at  leisure  over 
the  wide  field  of  desolation. 

The  third  period,  commencing  with  the  acknow- 
ledged supremacy  (or  at  least  independent  rights)  of 
the  Church,  reaches  through  a  track  of  seven  hun- 
dred years,  and  might  well  be  designated  the  dog 
days  of  spiritual  despotism.  The  scorching  heat 
was  at  its  height  in  the  eleventh  century. 

The  fourth  period  embraces  the  time  through  the 
course  of  which  a  reaction  was  taking  place  within 
the  social  system,  ending  in  the  expulsion  of  the  old 
despotism  from  several  of  the  European  nations,  its 
mitigation  in  others,  and  in  the  substitution  of  that 
mixed  spiritual  and  political  tyranny,  which  has,  at 
length,  given  way  before  the  advance  of  just  and 
liberal  opinions  on  the  subject  of  religious  liberty. 

After  taking  a  hasty  view  of  these  several  eras,  it 
will  remain  to  notice  certain  refined  modern  forms  of 
religious  intolerance ;  and  also  to  make  good  the 
allegation.  That  the  proper  and  salutary  influence  of 
the  ministers  of  religion  is  at  present  labouring  under 
serious  disadvantages,  and  requires  to  be  restored  to 
a  firm  foundation,  and  to  be  raised  to  a  higher 
stage. 

A  century  occupies  a  small  space  in  a  chart  of 


148  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

three  thousaDd  3^ears  ;  but  it  is  a  long  period  in  re- 
lation to  human  affairs.  A  century  completely  sub- 
stitutes one  set  of  men  for  another  ;  and  it  may  wit- 
ness, if  not  a  total  change  of  manners  and  usages, 
yet  an  opposite  direction  given  to  the  current  of  opi- 
nion, and  a  new  chaiacter  impartedlo  the  sentiments 
of  mankind.  The  century  commencing  with  the 
death  of  the  apostle  John,  and  ending  with  that  of 
Ireneeus,  included  great  changes  in  the  condition, 
temper,  and  usages  of  the  Christian  community. — 
These  changes  wc  find  to  have  actually  taken  place  ; 
but  we  are  destitute  of  the  means  of  clearly  tracing 
them  to  their  causes,  and  of  following  them  in  their  pro- 
gress. It  is  here  that  the  church  historian  is  at  fault; 
it  is  here  that  we  have  to  regret  the  loss,  or  w^ant,  of 
materials  which,  did  they  exist,  would  probably  fur- 
nish more  practical  instruction  than  is  presented  in 
the  history  of  the  five  centuries  following.  It  is  easy 
to  understand  the  march  of  evils  when  once  in  full 
course;  tlie  mystery  is  in  their  rise. 

After  this  first  century,  the  history  of  the  Churcti 
is  not  obscure  ;  and  it  is  almost  indifferent  what  date 
we  fix  upon,  between  the  acession  of  Trajan  and  the 
death  of  Diocletian,  as  a  point  of  view,  whence  to 
contemplate  the  general  condition  of  the  Church. — 
In  truth,  if  a  much  later  time  were  included,  we 
should  not  find  it  distinguished  from  the  earlier  era  by 
any  such  decisive  characteristics  as  might  be  supposed. 

In  reviewing  this  first  period,  we  must  have  re- 
course to  the  aid  of  some  classification  of  topics,  and 
consider — 1st.  The  relative  position  of  clergy  and 
laity  :  2d.  The  relative  position  of  the  several  orders 
of  the  clerical  body  :  3d.  The  relation  between  the  , 
Church  and  her  internal  opponents ;  or  heretics  and 
schismatics  of  every  name  :  and  4thly.  The  relation 
between  the  Church  and  the  world — that  is  to  say, 
the  mass  of  mankind,  and  the  civil  power  speci- 
fically. 


ITS   FIRST    STEPS  149 

First,  then,  for  the  relation  which  appears  to  have 
subsisted  within  the  Church,  between  the  ministers 
of  rehgion  and  the  people  at  large,  or,  as  we  say,  clergy 
and  laity. 

At  a  first  glance  it  might  seem  as  if  popular  influ- 
ence had  been  extended  and  confirmed  rather  than 
diminished  in  the  interval  between  the  apostolic  age 
and  that  (for  instance)  of  Cyprian,  inasmuch  as  the 
voice  of  the  people  in  the  election  of  their  bishops  and 
presbyters  was  then  admitted  in  a  way  of  which  we 
hear  nothing  in  the  canonical  records.  But  this  ad- 
vantage was  not  substantial  ;  or  was  more  than 
balanced  in  other  modes.  We  do  not  insist  upon 
those  reasons  which  may  lead  us  to  think  that  the 
popular  suff"rage  had  been  commonly  reduced  to  a 
mere  matter  of  form,  or  that,  like  the  power  of  the 
mob  in  our  modern  elections,  it  had  no  existence  except 
during  a  few  tumultuous  days,  and  was  merely  the 
hurricane  of  an  hour.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  clear 
that  religious  opinions  had  undergone  an  insensible, 
though  important  charige,  and  such  as  threw  into  the 
hands  of  the  clergy  a  power  not  thought  of  by  the 
simple  minded  apostles,  or  their  immediate  coadjutors 
and  successors. 

The  political  usages  of  a  community  are  of  far  less 
significance  than  the  notions  that  pervade  it ;  now 
if  the  usages  of  Church,  in  the  third  century,  had 
become  more  democratic,  its  sentiments  and  opinions 
favoured  spiritual  tyranny  in  an  immensely  greater 
proportion.  Those  great  and  consolatory  truths  on 
which  all  stress  was  laid  by  Paul,  John,  Peter,  and 
James — truths  of  rational  import,  and  of  elevating 
influence,  though  not  denied  or  forgotten,  had  sunk 
into  a  secondary  place  in  favour  of  notions  which 
attributed  unutterable  value,  and  a  mysterious  efficacy 
to  the  Christian  ceremonies.  Here  we  trace  the  first 
footmarks  of  clerical  encroachment.  The  adminis- 
13* 


150  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

Iration  of  the  sacraments  was  the  inviolable  pr<?ro- 
gative  of  priests  ;  and  these  symbols,  rather  than  the 
great  principles  they  held  forth,  were  insisted  upon 
as  of  vital  energy:  it  was  upon  touching,  tastings 
handling,  the  material  elements,  or  upon  being  duly 
touched  and  handled  by  the  dispensers  of  the  "  mys- 
teries," that  eternal  life  depended.  Not  to  be  washed 
in  the  laver  of  regeneration,  not  to  eat  of  the  divine 
flesh,  not  to  drink  the  blood,  not  to  be  anointed  with 
the  oil  of  remission,  was  to  perish  everlastingly. — 
Salvation  and  perdition  turned,  not  upon  the  condi- 
tion of  the  heart  in  God's  sight  ;  but  upon  having 
a  share  of  the  consecrated  fluid  or  solid  matter  which 
the  priest  might  bestow,  or  might  refuse. 

That  transition  of  sentiment,  or  of  doctrine,  which 
obscured  the  great  and  rational  truths  of  the  Gospel, 
and  which  magnified  the  mere  symbols  of  those 
truths,  we  have  no  satisfactory  means  of  following  ; 
but  the  result,  after  a  little  while,  is  most  conspicuous, 
and  its  effect  operated,  all  in  one  direction,  to  enslave 
the  spirits  of  the  people  and  to  place  the  clergy  in  a 
position  where  every  thing  was  at  their  command. — 
The  maturing  of  spiritual  despotism  wants  little  more 
of  means  and  instruments,  than  it  finds  in  this  sub- 
stitution of  superstition  and  ceremony  for  vital  tiuth, 
which  had  taken  place  while  yet  the  Church  was 
bleeding  under  the  hand  of  imperial  persecutors. 

Having  many  other  points  in  view,  our  limits  for- 
bid our  prosecuting,  what  indeed  would  be  an  in- 
structive inquiry,  concerning  the  rise  and  advance  of 
these  superstitions  ;  but  it  is  proper  here,  in  the  most 
distinct  manner,  to  point  them  out  as  the  -suflficient 
springs  of  that  extensive  despotism  which  at  length 
fastened  itself  upon  the  western  nations.  If  there  are 
those  who  allow  themselves  to  believe  that  the  politi- 
cal triumph  of  Christianity  in  the  fourth  century,  and 
the  alliance  between  Church  and  State,  then  effected, 
were  the  causes,  and  the  initial  means  of  the  papal 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  15l 

usurpations,  let  them  do  theuiselves  the  justice  of 
looking  into  the  writers  of  the  third  century,  among 
whom  they  will  find  the  most  abundant  evidence  of 
that  corruption  of  sentiment  which,  wherever  it  pre- 
vails, plants  the  foot  of  the  priest  upon  the  neck  of  the 
people.  We  must  in  charity  impute  extreme  ignorance 
to  those  who  have  professed  to  think  that  the  poHtical 
establishment  of  Christianity  was  the  cause  of  its 
corruption. 

In  examining  the  writers  of  the  succeeding  age, 
and  at  a  time  when  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  sat 
in  the  high  places  of  worldly  power,  we  meet  with 
tlie  same  superstitions,  and  in  that  gradually  matu- 
ring state  which  might  be  expected.  But  there  are 
few,  if  any  indications  of  a  ripening  or  expansion  of 
them,  hastened  by  the  altered  external  circumstances 
of  the  Church.  For  aught  that  appears,  Ambrose  of 
Milan,  Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  and  Martin  of  Tours, 
would  have  magnified  the  superstitions  of  their 
times  with  as  nuich  zeal  and  success  if  the  emperors 
had  continued  pagans,  as  they  did  while  court  favour 
shone  upon  their  heads. 

So  long  as  the  great  duty  of  Christian  ministers 
was  to  teach  and  .enforce  principles  of  belief, 
which  all  are  alike  to  enjoy  and  to  imbibe,  and 
which,  when  once  received,  are  (at  least  so  far  as  the 
teacher  is  concerned)  an  unalienable  possession,  these 
teachers  stand  upon  a  ground  of  reasonable  equality 
with  the  people.  But  the  relative  position  of  the  two 
parties  is  at  once,  and  essentially  changed,  when  the 
priest  pretends  to  have  something,  and  something 
mysterious,  to  bestow^  from  day  to  day,  as  well  as 
something  to  teach  ;  and  when  he  may,  at  discretion, 
bestow  or  withhold  the  inestimable  and  indispensable 
boon.  This  essential  change  of  position  we  find  to 
have  taken  place  long  before  Constantino  comes  upon 
the  stage.  Spiritual  despotism  had  already  laid  the 
broad  foundation  of  its  power  when  the  blood  of  Cy- 


152  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

prian  stained  the  sands  without  the  walls  of  Car- 
thage. 

Every  superstition,  as  well  as  that  relating  to  the 
sacraments,  had  the  same  tendency  to  throw  into  the 
hands  of  the  clergy  a  power  which  continually 
widened  the  interval  between  the  people  and  their 
ministers  ;  and  in  observing  the  rapid  growth  of  some 
of  these  errors,  it  is  hard  to  resist  the  belief  that  they 
were  wittingl}^  promoted,  and  craftily  sustained,  by 
the  clergy,  with  an  express  view  to  the  enlargement 
and  consolidation  of  their  influence.  The  natural 
growth  of  superstition  is  like  ivy  on  the  wall ;  but 
the  superstitions  of  the  early  Church  ran  like  the 
gourd  upon  the  ground,  and  we  must  needs  suppose 
that  their  spread  was  hastened  by  artificial  means. 

Of  this  sort  were — the  oblations  for  the  dead — 
the  festivals  of  the  martyrs — the  doctrine  (and  the 
practices  consequent  upon  it)  concerning  demoniacal 
possession,  and  the  principles  and  spirit  of  asceticism, 
each  of  which,  as  might  easily  be  shown,  secured  for 
the  priest,  in  one  manner  or  another,  a  discretionary 
power,  and  a  cringing  reverence,  altogether  unlike 
any  thing  claimed  by  apostolic  pastors.  All  this 
while  every  thing,  within  the  Church,  was  purely 
spontaneous  :  the  ministers  of  religion  were  doing 
nothing  but  what  the  ministers  of  the  mostobscure  and 
independent  sect  n)ight  do.  The  tendencies  of  human 
nature  were  taking  their  own  course. 

And  yet  no  scheme  of  encroachment  advances  far 
without  meeting  with  some  cross  influence,  or  unman- 
ageable force,  that  disturbs  its  measures.  So  it  was 
in  the  early  Church.  I'he  clergy,  by  flattering  the 
spiritual  vanity  of  the  ascetics,  and  by  exaggerating, 
in  the  most  fulsome  terms,  the  merit  of  celibacy  and 
maceration  of  the  flesh,  had  brought  over  to  their  side, 
pretty  generally,  the  monkish  bands;  and  these,  non- 
sacerdotal  as  they  were,  rendered  the  most  important 
aid  to  the  cleigy,  in  relation  to  the  people,  by  impo- 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  153 

sing  upon  the  latter  a  humiliating  sense  of  their  own 
spiritual  inferiority,  as  implicated  in  the  defilements 
of  common  life.     So  far  all  went  well. 

But  by  a  mere  accident  of  the  times,  there  sprung 
up  another  non-sacerdotal  class,  wdiich  was  not  to  be 
brought  into  subserviency  to  the  clergy,  and  which, 
in  fact,  proved  itself  refractory  to  an  extent  that  con- 
vulsed the  whole  fabric  of  the  Church.  This  class 
consisted  of  the  Confessors,  or  those  who,  in  the  re- 
current seasons  of  persecution,  had  manfully  sus- 
tained, and  had  survived,  tortures  ;  and  who,  on  the 
ground  of  the  incalculable  merit  they  had  won  as 
the  Lord's  triumphant  champions,  assumed  to  them- 
selves an  irregular  and  unlimited  privilege  of  contra- 
vening the  established  discipline  of  the  Church,  of  re- 
versing sentences  of  excommunication,  and  especially 
of  restoring  to  communion  those  who,  under  the 
same  fiery  trial,  had  fallen  and  renounced  the  faith. 
The  authority  of  the  most  highly  esteemed,  the  most 
politic,  and  the  most  powerful  prelates,  and  this  au- 
thority stretched  to  the  utmost,  was,  in  many  instan- 
ces, defied  and  overthrown  by  the  insolence  of  these 
spiritual  Athletse.  The  ascetics  were,  ordinarily, 
men  of  a  sluggish  or  timid  temper,  and  yielded  readi- 
ly to  the  hand  of  power  ;  not  so  the  confessors  ;  for 
the  very  resolution  of  spirit,  and  the  physical  hardi- 
hood, and  immobility  of  nerve,  which,  often,  had 
enabled  them  to  conquer  in  the  hour  of  pain,  rendered 
them  afterwards  equally  sturdy  and  invincible  in  as- 
serting and  maintaining  the  pernicious  influence  they 
had  gained. 

Whenever  persecution  broke  out  anew,  a  fresh 
band  of  confessors  started  up  to  trouble  and  beard  the 
clergy.  No  provision  could  be  made  against  these 
invasions  ;  no  means  taken  to  avert  the  mischief  they 
effected.  Nor  were  these  mischiefs  temporary ;  for 
the  controversies  on  the  principles  and  practices  of 
discipline  which  thence  arose,  gave  birth  to  schism 


154  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

after  schism  ;  and  occasioned  most  of  those  internal 
disorders  that  distracted  the  western  Church  through 
several  centuries. 

Clerical  power  was,  we  say.  at  first,  obstructed  and 
thwarted  by  these  means  ;  and  yet  the  remote  conse- 
quence was  to  enhance  it.  Nothing  more  effectually 
promoted,  after  a  while,  the  encroachinents  of  the 
hierarchy  in  the  west,  than  the  resistance  it  had  had 
to  encounter  from  the  confessors,  and  their  adherents. 
The  bishops,  feeling  on  these  occasions  that  they 
still  wanted  much  more  powder  than  they  possessed, 
for  the  purpose  of  carrying  their  measures,  and  of 
overruling  opposition,  set  themselves  deliberately  to 
the  work — a  work  which  the  holders  of  power  easily 
persuade  themselves  is  a  holy  and  beneficial  one,  of 
consolidating  their  authority  in  every  possible  mode. 
The  rapid  advances  of  spiritual  despotism  we  might 
date  from  what  is  termed  the  seventh  persecution,  and 
the  episcopate  of  Cpyrian. 

We  should  not  foil  to  mention  the  very  important 
influence  which  the  custom  of  holding  provincial  and 
general  councils  had  in  affecting  the  relative  position 
of  the  clergy  and  laity.  To  this  subject  we  must 
revert  when  speaking  of  the  relative  dignity  of  the 
several  orders  of  the  clergy  ;  but  the  first  and  most 
marked  result  of  the  practice  of  transferring  every 
considerable  controversy,  whether  doctrinal  or  eccle- 
siastical, from  the  Church  where  it  originated,  to  a  con- 
vention of  bishop?,  was,  of  course,  at  once  to  cut  off 
the  people  from  all  control  over  such  discussions,  and 
virtually  to  deny  them  the  right  of  entertaining  a  free 
opinion  on  the  subject  of  debate.  The  holding  of  a 
council,  or  the  establishment  of  a  representative  sys- 
tem, must  not  be  reproved  as  in  itself  improper  or  in- 
expedient ;  but  the  spirit  and  practice  of  apostolic 
Christianity  imperatively  demanded,  in  such  cases, 
that  the  laity,  by  their  own  representatives — that  is, 
by  some  of  themselves,  and  in  a  due  proportion  of 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  155 

numbers,  should  have  been  called  to  attend  the  con- 
vention ;  and  when  there,  should  have  been  allowed 
to  exercise  some  efficient  powers.  The  sending  of 
the  bishop  alone,  or  the  bishop  and  some  few  of  his 
clergy,  to  represent  the  Church  in  the  council,  and 
thence  to  bring  home  canons  and  decrees,  not  to  be 
discussed,  but  obeyed,  was  an  innovation  and  a  usur- 
pation, fatal  as  well  to  the[liberties  ofthe  people,  as  to 
the  purify  and  spirituality  of  religion.  The  laity,  if 
not  often  qualified,  by  theological  accomplishments, 
for  taking  an  active  part  in  debate,  are  at  least  quali- 
fied for  swaying  decisions  after  hearing  of  arguments, 
by  that  vigorous  and  untainted  good  sense,  and  by 
that  fervent  and  simple  piety,  in  both  which  the  clergy 
are  too  often  lamentably  deficient. 

If  there  had  been  no  other  cause  at  work  to  give 
rise  to  spiritual  despotism,  this  alone  would  have  been 
enough  :  we  must  assign  the  commencement  of  its 
operation  to  as  early  a  time  as  the  middle  of  the  second 
century.  There  can  be  no  security,  no  liberty,  and 
scarcely  any  purity  or  vitality,  in  a  Church  which 
says  to  the  laity,  in  mass, — "  You  have  nothing  to  do 
with  theology,  but  to  receive  what  we  teach  you ; 
and  nothing  to  do  with  rules  of  discipline,  or  laws  of 
administration,  but  to  yield  them  obedience."  Under 
any  such  state  of  things  we  find  the  very  essence  of 
spiritual  despotism  ;  whether  or  not  it  be  fully  ex- 
panded. 

It  was  only  the  natural  consequence  of  the  several 
causes  we  have  mentioned,  that  the  dignity  and  pre- 
rogatives of  the  clerical  character  should,  at  the  same 
time,  have  been  exalted  and  affirmed  in  turgid  lan- 
guage. Nevertheless  these  exaggerations,  and  the 
measures  that  attended  them,  were  preparatives  only 
to  that  matured  state  of  things  which  gave  to  the 
sacerdotal  order,  at  length,  an  absolute  and  undefined 
power  over  the  mass  of  the  people.  What  concerns 
us  to  observe  is  not  so  much  the  actual  progress  made 


156  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

in  the  early  time  of  which  we  are  speaking,  toward 
spiritual  despotism,  as  the  fact — unquestionable  as  it 
is,  that  the  preparation  was  really  commenced,  and 
was  carried  to  a  great  length,  long  iDefore  the  Christian 
community,  within  the  Roman  Empire,  had  received 
any  kind  of  favour  or  support,  beyond  a  transient  and 
precarious  indulgence  from  the  State,  and  before  the 
chiefs  of  the  Church  could  have  entertained  a  hope 
of  the  revolution  that  was  at  length  to  occur. 

We  have  next  to  notice  the  changes  which,  during 
the  same  early  period,  gradually  took  place  in  the 
relative  position,  dignities,  and  prerogatives,  of  the 
several  orders  of  the  clerical  body. 

It  is  easy  to  mistake  the  accidental  form  of  a  tyran- 
nical system,  for  the  substance  and  principle  of  it. — 
This  error  has  very  commonly  been  fallen  into  by 
those  who  have  reviewed  the  history  of  the  earl}^ 
church.  True  indeed  it  is,  that  hierarchical  en- 
croachments were  pushed  on  by  the  immediate 
agency,  and  at  the  impulse  of  the  episcopal  order :  but 
episcopacy  was  the  form  only,  not  the  essence  of  the 
spiritual  despotism  of  the  times.  Oligarchies  and 
aristocracies  have  been,  to  the  full,  as  oppressive  as 
monarchies.  Yet  it  may  be  granted  that  despotism 
leans  towards  the  monarchical  form,  and  that  under 
this  form,  though  not  always  so,  its  advances  are 
likely  to  be  more  steady  and  consistent  than  under 
any  other. 

The  spiritual  despotism  which  had  reached  a 
height  in  the  fourth  century  was  indeed  episcopal  in 
its  model  ;  but  if  is  an  illusion  to  suppose,  either  that 
episcopacy  was  its  cause  or  reason,  or  that  it  would 
not  have  found  place,  if  some  other  scheme  of  church 
government  had  prevailed.  Episcopacy  did  prevail, 
not  because  it  was  selected  as  more  conducive  than 
any  other  system  to  the  consolidation  of  church 
power ;    but   because  it  had  come  down,  with  the 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  157 

auihorit.y  of  universal  tiaditionj  as  the  ancient,  if  not 
apostolic  constitution  of  the  Church. 

No  one  conversant  witii  the  remains  of  Christian 
literature  can  think  of  affirming  that  the  clergy,  in 
tliat  age,  when  it  had  lost  its  simplicity  and  become 
ambitious,  deliberately  formed  itself  upon  the  episco- 
pal model,  with  a  view  to  the  move  effectual  and 
speedy  attainment  of  its  ends.  Fix  as  early  a  date 
as  we  can,  wilh  any  reason,  for  the  commencement 
of  such  a  machination,  and  we  still  find  the  Cliurches 
every  where  episcopally  governed.  Let  us  imagine 
that  a  stern  conviction  of  the  divine  authority  of  the 
presbyterian  form,  and  of  the  absolute  equality  of 
teachers  and  rulers,  had  prevailed  among  the  clergy; 
or  let  us  suppose  ihat  the  temper  of  the  times  had 
favoured  this  system,  and  had  excluded  any  other  ; 
can  we  believe  that,  other  tljings  being  the  same, 
and  the  laity,  in  the  one  case  as  v.'ell  as  the  other, 
being  excluded  from  conclaves  and  councils,  (he 
presbyteries  of  Carthage,  of  Rome,  or  of  Milan, 
w^ould  have  shown  themselves  less  arrogant,  and  less 
eager  to  accumulate  lionors  and  \i'ealih,  than  were 
the  actual  bishops  of  those  sees?  We  are  mucli 
inclined  to  tliinlc  the  very  reverse,  and  can  easily 
imagine  that,  whereas  the  episcopal  authority,  in 
those  places,  was  mitigated  often  by  the  personal 
mildness  of  individual  bishops,  and  so  the  advance 
of  usurpations  was  retarded  ;  on  the  contrary,  a  per- 
petual corporation  would  have  known  no  intermis- 
sions of  ambitious  encroachment,  and  would,  widi  a 
remorseless  intensity,  have  followed  up  every  step;  by 
a  step  still  more  bold. 

Ecclesiastical  writers,  and  even  those  personally 
attached  to  episcopacy,  have,  with  a  view  as  it  seems 
to  approve  their  impartiality,  been  forward  to  repre- 
sent and  to  denounce  the  pride  and  the  secularity  of 
the  bishops  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries.  This 
might  be  well ;  but  the  exposure  of  these  evils  should 
14 


158  SPIRITUAL  DESPOtrSM. 

surely  Imve  been  accompanied  by  tlie  distinction  to 
which  we  have  adverted  ;  and  so,  while  bishops  were 
blamed,  episcopacy  should  have  been  cleared. 

Fiirtliermore,  it  is  quite  necessary,  for  the  purpose 
of  ridding  the  argument  of  all  that  does  not  belong 
to  it,  to  set  off  from  our  account  of  the  hierarchical 
changes  that  took  place,  such  of  ihem,  or  such  of 
their  attendant  circumstances,  as  followed  in  the 
INEVITABLE  COURSE  of  things,  and  which  were  by 
no  means  in  themselves  culpable,  whatever  might  be 
the  consequences  that  in  the  end  flowed  from  them. 
For  example:  although  it  does  not  certainly  appear 
that  the  actual  number  of  ofFices"  distinguished  by 
specific  terms,  was  much  greater  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  fourth  century,  than  it  had  been  at  the 
close  of  the  first ;  nevertheless  these  various  officer 
had,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  naturally  settled  down  into 
a  permanent  form,  so  that  services  which,  at  the 
earlier  period,  had  been  interchangeably  performed, 
or  at  least  had  not  been  rigorously  assigned  to  indi- 
viduals, had,  at  tlie  later  period,  come  under  a  regular 
and  carefully  defined  system  of  distribution  ;  and  had 
drawn  to  themselves  severally  their  specific  import- 
ance, and  their  relative  dignity.  Nothing  could  have 
prevented  this  sort  of  systemizing  of  functions  :  it 
results  from  the  very  nature  of  tilings,  and  must  in 
all  cases  attend  the  handing  down  of  a  social  econo- 
my from  one  age  to  another. 

The  change  therefore  from  an  imfixed  to  a  fixed 
constitution  of  offices  and  ranks,  although  its  ten- 
dency was  to  favour  the  advance  of  the  growing 
despotism,  is  in  itself  no  proper  object  of  blame;  and 
in  any  parallel  case,  instead  of  indulging  a  morbid 
and  fruitless  jealousy  against  the  consolidated  and 
various  offices  of  a  hierarchy,  the  wiser  course  would 
be  to  bestow  our  pains  upon  the  proper  means  of 
counteracting,  or  of  balancing  the  despotic  principle 
that  may  be   so  embodied.     It  is  not  five  orders,  or 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  159 

twenty,  that  makes  a  Churcli  despotic ;  but  rather 
'.he  distribution  among  those  orders,  whether  few  or 
many,  of  irresponsible  and  uncorrected  powers. 

Again,  the  government  of  the  Church  being  epis- 
copal, whether  by  apostolic  authority  or  not,  nothing 
else  could  happen,  under  the  actual  ciicumstances  of 
the  infant  and  struggling  sect,  but  that  powers  of  all 
kinds  should  gather  round  each  episcopal  chair  ; 
and  especially  round  those  in  the  great  cities.  Ea- 
gerly was  the  bishop  appealed  to  as  arbiter  among 
the  brethren  in  adjusting  their  secular  differences  ; 
gladly  was  he  made  the  depositary  of  family  secrets, 
and  the  guardian  of  orphans.  None  so  proper  as  he 
to  be  the  treasurer  of  public  funds,  and  to  his  hands 
was  often  intrusted  private  property,  in  unsettled 
times. 

Our  own  circumstances,  surrounded  as  we  are  by 
every  sort  of  legal  provision,  and  public  security, 
hardly  admit  of  our  properly  allowing  for  that  un- 
avoidable course  of  affairs  which,  in  the  ancient 
Church,  threw  at  the  feet  of  bishops  much  more  in- 
fluence and  wealth  tlian  consisted,  generally,  with 
the  simplicity,  humility,  and  sanctity  becoming  their 
of!ice.  These  dignitaries  were,  in  a  sense,  the  victims 
of  the  existing  condition  of  the  Christian  communi- 
ty ;  and  in  fact  we  find  not  a  few  of  this  order  la- 
menting the  secular  embarrassments  by  which  they 
were  oppressed,  and  sighing,  though  in  vai!),  for 
liberty  to  devote  themselves,  without  distraction,  to 
their  spiritual  functions.  In  other  instances  men, 
eminently  qualified  by  learning  and  piety  for  the 
government  of  the  Church,  earnestly  and  even  pas- 
sionately resisted  the  wishes  of  the  people  to  raise 
them  to  that  dignity,  and  pronounced  the  nolo  epis- 
copari  in  a  tone  that  could  not  be  thought  insincere. 
It  is  extremely  inequitable  and  uncandid  to  incul- 
pate the  bishops  of  the  ancient  Church,  without  dis- 
crimination, on  the  ground  of  that  accumulation  of 


160  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

secular  nnd  spiritual  influence,  and  that  influx  of 
wealth,  which  none  of  them  could  have  prevented, 
even  if  so  inclined,  and  which  many  of  them  heartily 
deplored. 

These  distinctions  and  exceptions  duly  admitted^ 
it  yet  remains  certain,  that  the  gradual  influx  of 
power  and  v/ealth  upon  a  few  ecclesiastical  centres, 
nd  the  consequent  acceleration  of  the  natural  growth 
of  authority,  did  in  fact  raise  (he  metropolitans  and 
patriarchs  of  the  Christian  world  to  r  p.  elevation  not 
compatible,  human  nature  being  such  as  it  is,  with 
the  meekness  and  humility  of  the  Gliiistian  temper. 
Man  has  not  virtue  enough  to  resist  incitements  so 
many  and  so  efficacious.  The  best  will  probably 
become  at  length  insolent,  sensual,  avaricious,  in- 
tolerant. Nothing  could  happen  but  that  corruption 
and  profligacy,  impudent  hypocrisy,  and  knavery, 
should  spread  through  the  clerical  order,  when  its 
cliiefs  occupied  a  station  beset  by  every  sort  of  se-^ 
duction. 

The  wealth  and  power  attached  to  the  principal 
sees  thoroughly  vitiated  the  Christianity  of  the  times, 
flrst,  by  widening  so  far  the  interval  between  the 
dignitaries  of  the  Church  and  the  mass  of  the  people  as 
to  intercept  all  reciprocity  of  feeling  between  the  shep- 
herd and  the  flock  ;  and  secondly,  by  so  widening  the 
interval  between  one  order  of  clerical  persons  and 
another,  as  imposed  upon  the  lower  a  servile  feeling, 
and  imparted  to  them  a  cringing  habit,  and  dissipa- 
ted that  sentiment  of  virtual  equality,  as  brethren  in 
Christ,  wiiich  is,  in  the  most  absolute  sense,  neces- 
sary and  proper  among  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel. 
A  hierarchy  is  indeed  the  bane  of  piety,  and  a  curse 
to  a  community,  when  its  distinctions  of  rank  are  of 
such  vast  compass  as  to  vilify  the  humbler  clerical 
orders,  and  to  compel  them  to  shrink  in  conscious 
meanness  from  before  the  splendours  of  ecclesiastical 
dignity. 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  161 

Though  it  was  neither  the  cause,  nor  itself  the 
substance  of  spiritual  despotism,  we  must  yet  arraign 
the  exaggerated  greatness  of  the  episcopal  order,  and 
especially  of  the  metropolitans  (compared  with  the 
inferior  clergy)  as  a  principal  accelerating  means  of 
maturing  the  tyranny  that  was  at  length  to  cover 
the  western  world. 

The  effect  of  the  practice  of  holding  general  or 
provincial  councils  has  already  been  mentioned  in  its 
relation  to  the  laity.  It  should  be  adverted  to  also 
as  it  bore  upon  the  several  ranks  of  the  clergy. 

It  appears  then,  that,  although  presbyters  and  dea- 
cons attended  those  occasional  synods  that  were  con- 
vened by  bishops  in  their  particular  dioceses;  it  was 
the  bishops  only  who  met  their  metropolitan  in  the 
stated  vernal  and  autumnal  conventions  ;  and  the 
bishops  only  who  were  summoned  to  cecumenic 
councils.  As  well  the  constant  as  the  extraordinary 
practice  of  the  Church,  therefore,  established  a  broad 
ilistinction  between  the  first  and  the  second  orders  of 
the  clergy  ;  and  it  was  a  distinction  arbitrary  and 
impolitic  in  a  high  degree,  as  well  as  glaringly  at 
variance  w'ith  the  usage  of  tlie  apostolic  Churcii. 
Oharchmen  must  have  renounced  all  respect  for  the 
example  and  injunctions  of  the  inspired  founders  of 
Christianity,  when  they  could  exclude  from  dehbera- 
tive  assemblies,  not  the  people  merely,  but  the  minis- 
ters of  religion,  and  their  colleagues  in  office. 

When  the  bishops  returned  from  these  aristocratic 
conventions  to  their  sees,  bearing  with  them  autho-. 
ritative  determinations  of  religious  controversies,  to- 
gether with  general  rules  of  conduct,  or  canons,  and 
special  decisions  touching  individuals ;  what  was 
likely  to  happen  ?  Let  us  suppose  that  the  clergy  as 
w^ell  as  the  people  obsequiously  bowed  to  the  wisdom 
or  the  will  of  their  superiors.  This  acquiescence  in 
most  cases  could  take  place  only  because  clergy  as 
well  as  laity  had  already  been  so  disciplined  in  ser- 
14* 


162  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

vile  and  silent  submission,  that  they  knew  no  other 
law,  and  no  olher  rule  of  right  than  the  word  of  their 
spiritual  masters.  Despotism  must  almost  have 
reached  its  height  where  the  decrees  of  synods  met 
with  no  resistance. 

But,  on  the  contrary,  we  may  imagine  instances — 
indeed  such  frequently  occurred,  in  which  freedom  of 
thought,  or  refractory  impulses,  induced  some  of  the 
inferior  clergy  to  call  in  question  the  theological  dog- 
mas, or  the  ecclesiastical  regulations,  of  the  prelates. 
This  contumacy  could  not  be  winked  at.  The  dissi- 
dents were  reported  to  the  next  synod  ;  the  bishops 
felt  their  official  honour  touched  ;  they  of  course  sus- 
tained each  other,  and  defended  their  common  aU' 
thority.  Already  all  substantial  powers  were  in  their 
hands :  opposition,  after  a  struggle,  was  overcome, 
and  the  audacious  presbyter  and  his  associates  were 
degraded.  Yet  this  was  not  enough,  for  every  such 
struggle  suggested  anew  the  necessity  of  exalting 
still  more  the  divine  episcopal  prerogatives,  of  lifting 
the  throne  a  step  higher,  and  of  providing  still  more 
ample  means  for  preventing,  or  for  crushing  similar 
revolts. 

Thus  it  is  always  that  despotic  practices  involve 
the  necessity  of  still  more  arbitrary  proceedings.  It 
is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  any  invasion  of 
the  rights  of  men  should  stop  at  a  point  of  compara- 
tive moderation  :  if  we  wrong  men,  we  must,  in  self 
defence,  goon  to  enslave  tliem.  The  most  horrible 
excesses  of  tyranny  are  coiled  in  the  egg  that  is  left, 
without  noise  or  notice,  to  hatch  in  the  sand  by  dra- 
gon Pride, 

The  synodic  system  then,  such  as  it  prevailed  both 
in  the  east  and  in  the  west,  is  justly  named  as  a  prin- 
cipal cause  or  means  of  the  Spiritual  Despotism  which 
so  early  grasped  the  Christian  world. 

From  the  extensive  subject  of  the  monkery  of  the 
ancient  Church  we  must  abstain  in  the  present  in- 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  163 

Stance,  except  so  far  as  to  point  out,  in  passing,  the 
initial  steps  of  that  intimate  and  potent  ghostly 
tyranny  which  became  at  length  a  main  stay  of  the 
papal  usurpations,  and  which  took  its  rise  from  the 
rules  and  practices  of  tiie  monastery.  Within  the 
religious  houses,  at  a  very  early  period,  the  doctrine 
was  generally  maintained,  that  every  member  of  the 
fraternity  was  bound,  as  he  regarded  his  salvation,  to 
expose  his  soul,  with  its  inmost  secrets,  to  the  eye  of 
liis  superior  and  spiritual  father.  Such  was  the 
principle  peremptorily  insisted  upon  by  Basil,  the 
great  promoter  of  the  monastic  life.  The  usage  of 
confession,  wdiicli  suited  well  the  habits  and  senti- 
ments of  those  who  had  renounced  all  the  ordinary 
motives  of  human  nature,  w^as  insensibly  stretched 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  inonastery,  and  was  made  to 
apply,  first  to  the  feeble  and  superstitious — to  women, 
and  to  men  of  inert  and  servile  temperaments,  in  the 
open  world  ;  and  at  length  to  all,  without  exception. 
But  long  before  the  time  of  this  consummation  of 
church  power,  the  clergy  had  got  possession  of  a  most 
formidable  and  efficacious  engine  of  government,  by 
penetrating  into  thr>  secrets  of  families,  and  by  having 
at  their  command  the  alarmed  consciences  often  of 
official  and  prominent  personages. 

On  this  invisible  ground  priestly  despotism  had 
gained  a  broad  fooling  before  the  era  of  the  political 
ascendancy  of  the  Church  ;  nor  were  its  advances, 
on  this  ground,  sensibly  accelerated  by  that  event. 
For  aught  that  appears,  the  practice  of  confession 
would  have  gone  on  extending  its  sphere,  and  deep- 
ening its  hold  of  all  minds,  as  rapidly  and  securely 
through  another  century  of  persecution,  as  it  did 
during  the  era  of  security. 

The  preparations  for  extending  and  confirming 
this  same  despotism  were  again  hastened  forward  by 
circumstances  that  arose  out  of  the  controversies  car- 


164  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

ried  on  between  the  Church  and  the  numerous  here- 
tics and  schismatics  who  assailed  her. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  tlie  consciousness  of  having 
at  command  the  force  of  the  State  and  the  terrors  of 
the  sword,  tends  to  inflame  the  dogmatism  of  a  domi- 
nant religious  body.  But  it  is  also  true  (although 
the  fact  may  be  less  obvious)  that  the  very  conscious- 
ness of  the  destitution  of  any  such  means  of  enforcing 
submission,  naturall}^  operates  with  the  chiefs  of 
such  a  party  to  induce  them  to  invent,  or  to  insist 
upon  abstract  and  transcendental  notions  of  an  in- 
tolerant kind  ;  and  thus  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
ghostly  power  even  wider  and  deeper  than  otherwise 
would  have  been  thought  of.  So  it  is  that  we  find 
the  champions  of  the  papacy,  in  later  ages,  and  when 
the  secular  arm  had  been  brought  to  be  altogether 
subservient  to  the  Church,  looking  back  to  the  pages 
of  Cyprian,  for  warranty  in  support  of  the  lofty  doc- 
trines which  then  they  had  need  of  Cyprian  and 
his  colleagues  because  unbefriended  by  the  IState  ;  and 
because  they  could  prop  their  power  only  upon  opi- 
nion, had  promulgated  that  very  theory  of  intole- 
rance which  gave  an  appearance  of  reason  and  of 
venerable  authority  to  the  practices  of  a  despotism 
that  had  all  means  at  its  beck. 

We  say  the  difficult  part  it  had  to  perform  in  re- 
butting the  thousand  heresies  of  the  times,  drove  the 
Church,  almost  involuntarily,  upon  despotic  ground, 
at  least  it  must  be  granted,  that  nothing  less  tiianthe 
general  diffusion  of  the  most  enlightened  principles — 
principles  only  of  late  clearly  developed,  could  have 
preserved  the  chiefs  of  the  Church  from  staying 
themselves  upon  doctrines  essentially  intolerant.  The 
apostles  iudeed  (divinely  guided  as  they  were)  drew 
the  line  straight,  between  laxity  and  tyranny;  but 
to  observe  that  line,  plain  as  it  is,  has  required  more 
simplicity  of  mind  than  any  sect,  in  any  age,  has 
hitherto  possessed.   We  must  not  then  severely  blame 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  165 

the  early  promulgators  of  intolerant  sentiments. 
They  seemed  to  themselves  to  be  pursuing  the  only 
course  on  which  thetmih  of  God  could  be  secured;  nor 
could  they  forecast  the  horrible  and  sanguinary  inter- 
pretation tliat  would  in  the  end  be  put  upon  the  lan- 
guage they  used. 

The  primitive  Church,  in  truth,  merits  admira- 
tion, not  merely  on  accout)t  of  its  constancy  in  main- 
taining the  Gospel  against  its  pagan  adversariee,  and 
through  a  fiery  trial ;  but  on  account  of  its  steady, 
consistent,  and,  on  tlie  whole,  intelhgent  adherence 
to  the  great  principles  of  Cliristianily,  assailed  as  they 
were  in  turn,  sometimes  by  audacious  impieties,  and 
gometimes  by  insiduous  sopliisms.  Scarcely  had 
some  impudent  and  extravagant  heresiarch  been  con- 
futed, when  a  crafty  and  adroit  impugner  of  the 
faith  started  up,  in  the  east  or  the  west — at  Alexan- 
dria, or  at  Carthage,  to  seduce  the  unwary,  and  to 
lead  away  the  disaffected. 

On  these  occasions,  as  the  great  works  of  the  time, 
still  extant,  abundantly  tesiify,  the  champions  of  the 
Faith  did  noi  fail  to  allege  the  authority  of  Scripture 
in  opposition  to  the  errors  they  had  to  refute.  But, 
as  supplementary  to  this  main  argument,  they  ap- 
pealed, and  in  a  forcible  manner,  to  the  manifest  and 
unquestionable  fact  of  a  continued  derivation  of  doc- 
trines from  the  apostles,  in  the  principal  seats  of 
Christianity.  This  appeal  was,  in  itself,  fair  and 
conclusive;  and  under  parallel  circumstances  would, 
no  doubt,  be  made  by  modern  parties.  In  the  third 
and  fourth  century  the  line  of  tradition  from  the  apos- 
tles and  their  immediate  successors  was  not  so  far 
stretched  as  to  have  become  attenuated,  or  unsafe  to 
be  relied  upon.  The  succession  of  a  very  few 
elders,  in  each  primitive  Church,  conveyed,  orally, 
the  doctrine  of  the  first  age  to  the  third  and  fourth. 
Are  we  ourselves  under  any  historical  uncertainty  as 
to  the  doctrines  held  by  the  Reformers?  and  if  thesQ 


166  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

opinions  weie  regarded  as  of  ultimate  authority,  we 
should  naturally  appeal  to  the  copious  traditionary 
evidence  which  makes  it  certain  what  those  opinions 
were.  But  in  this  case,  the  line  is  much  longer  than 
that  which  connected  Dionysius,  Origen,  and  Cyp- 
rian, with  Ignatius,  Clemens,  and  John. 

The  appeal  to  tradition,  in  refutation  of  heretical 
novelties,  must  not  then  he  indiscriminately  hlamed. 
If  we  had  found  the  early  Christian  w-riters  abstaining 
entirely  from  it,  the  uncomfortable  inference  would 
have  forced  itself  upon  us,  that  they  were  themselves 
conscious  of  a  departure  from  the  apostolic  doctrine  ; 
or  at  least,  that  ail  continuity  of  opinion  had  been 
broken  up.  Yet,  though  allowable  and  proper,  this 
appeal  to  tradition,  without  the  greatest  caution  in 
the  use  of  it,  and  the  clearest  distinction  always 
made  between  such  proof,  and  that  drawn  from  the 
canonical  writings,  would  inevitably  open  the  w^ay 
for  a  mode  of  argument  essentially  despotic.  This 
argument  was  much  more  easily  wielded  by  inferior 
minds  than  the  scriptural  evidence ;  it  was,  also, 
more  to  the  taste  of  intemperate  and  dogmatic  spirits  ; 
and  it  would  therefore  gradually  supphuit  the  other 
species  of  proof.  Besides,  as  it  was,  even  from  the 
first,  indefmite  and  variable,  or  at  least  unfixed  ;  so 
must  it  have  become,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  incessantly 
less  and  less  trustworthy,  and  more  and  more  open 
to  abuse.  The  consciousness  of  this  augmenting  in- 
certitude would,  by  the  principles  of  human  nature, 
lead  to  a  more  arrogant  and  noisy  assertion  of  its  va- 
lidity. Thus,  while  its  substance  was  inw^ardly 
crumbling  away,  the  argument  from  tradition  would 
be  made  to  sustain,  every  year,  a  greater  weight 
But  the  very  temper  of  despotism  is  generated,  and 
its  lawless  proceedings  are  extended,  whenever  a 
power  comes  into  the  position  to  prop  itself  mainly 
upon  what  it  knows  and  feels  to  be  a  rotten  founda- 
tion, 


ITS  JPIRST  STEPS.  167 

Here  again  we  find  a  main  pillar  of  the  Romisli 
usurpation,  of  which  the  basement  at  least  had  been 
reared  as  early  as  the  close  of  the  third  century. 

Once  more  :  after  appealing,  first  to  the  Scriptures, 
in  confutation  of  heretics,  and  next  to  the  traditionary 
doctrine  of  the  principal  Churches,  the  leading  cham- 
pions of  Chi  istianity  laboured  strenuously,  as  well  to 
sustain  the  constancy  and  allegiance  of  the  mass  of 
the  faithful,  as  to  inspire  the  contumacious  with  fear, 
by  insisting  upon  the  Unity  of  the  True  Church, 
and  by  representing,  in  the  strongest  language,  the 
sin  and  danger  of  separation  from  it.  In  this  instance, 
as  in  the  preceding,  we  are  called  upon  to  use  some 
discrimination,  and  to  check  our  rising  censures. 

The  very  expressions,  and  the  identical  arguments 
which,  as  employed  by  the  sanguinary  champions  of 
the  papacy,  under  Innocent  III.,  excite  our  abhor- 
rence and  contempt,  may  be  traced  up  to  the  well- 
intentioned  defenders  of  the  faith  in  the  third  cen- 
tury ;  and  if  we  will  only  take  the  pains  to  transport 
ourselves,  in  idea,  to  that  time,  we  shall  see  reason  to 
confess,  that  the  position  then  assumed  was  one  na- 
tural for  them  to  take,  and  not  altogether  unsubstan- 
lial. 

Few  points,  if  any.  are  more  strongly  insisted  upon 
by  our  Lord  and  his  apostles,  as  specifically  charac- 
teristic of  the  Gospel,  than  the  union,  communion, 
and  love,  an^.ong  its  adherents,  which  should  be  a  sign 
to  the  world  of  its  divinity.  At  the  same  time  the 
sin  and  peril  of  those  who  cause  divisions  is  seriously 
asserted.  This  doctrine  therefore,  and  this  commi- 
nation  could  not  be  overlooked  by  those  who  knew 
themselves  to  belong  to  the  general  body  of  the  faith- 
ful, and  who  had  to  deal  with  refractory  parties. 
But  great  care  should  have  been  taken  in  applying 
this  principle,  and  its  sanction,  to  particular  cases : 
as  for  example. — 

The  unity  of  the  Church,  and  the  unbroken  con- 


168  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

sent  of  the  faithful,  in  tlie  elementary  matters  of  be- 
lief, can  apply  to  the  Church  only  so  long  as  the 
word  of  Christ  is  freely  ditfused  among  the  people, 
and  his  authority  fully  respected,  in  contravention  of 
human  creeds.  Moreover,  it  can  mean  only  the  ge- 
neral concurrence  of  all  believers  (so  respecling  the 
authority  of  Christ)  in  relation  to  the  great  principles 
ofCiirislian  faith ;  and  must  by  no  means  be  mistaken 
for  the  decisions  of  certain  assemblies,  or  synods,  or 
of  particular  rulers,  arrogating  the  right  to  speak  in 
the  ruune  of  Christendom.  Nor  again,  njust  this 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  Church  be  urged  in  sup- 
port of  particular  interpretations,  concerning  which 
the  best  informed,  and  the  most  upright  nuiy  differ  ; 
nor  in  defence  of  special  usages  or  ceremonies,  not 
enjoyed  in  Scripture,  and  imposed  by  those  who  may 
happen  to  possess  influence  or  power  enough  to  carry 
their  measures. 

St.  Paul  makes  an  express  provision  for  granting 
indulgence  to  th.use  wiu),  ihrougli  weakness  of  faith, 
or  excessive  sensibility  of  conscience,  cannot  con- 
form to  tiie  general  opinion  ;  and  he  secures  the 
substance  of  church  harmony  and  uiiity,  by  leaving 
ample  room  for  that  liberty  of  private  judgment  which 
cannot  be  invaded  without  crushing  the  human 
mind;  and  substituting  the  chains  of  despotism  for 
the  bond  of  peace  and  love. 

But  with  the  early  defenders  of  ecclesiastical 
power,  those  we  mean  who  belong  to  the  pristine 
era,  now  under  review,  the  Unity  of  tlie  Church 
meant — that  artificial  concentration  of  actual  infiu- 
ence  which  converged  upon  Carthage,  upon  Antioch, 
upon  Alexandria,  or  upon  Rome.  It  was  not  the 
consent  of  all  believers  ;  but  the  sense  of  Dionysius, 
of  Cyprian,  or  of  Cornelius.  The  communion  of 
saints  was  not  the  atfectionate  correspondence  and 
intercourse  of  all  who  held  to  tlie  Head,  and  loved 
each  other  as   members  of  Christ  ;  but    rather  the 


ITS    FIRST    STEPS.  169 

visible  fact  of  ecclesiastical  submission  to  this  or  that 
metropolitan  or  patriarch.  The  form  was  taken  for 
the  substance ;  and  those,  in  many  cases,  were 
treated  as  aliens  and  enemies,  whose  only  crime  was 
the  caUing  in  question  some  arbitrary  determina- 
tion of  a  self-constituted  and  irresponsible  authority. 

Strange  it  was  that  these  bishops  and  reverend 
Fathers,  removed  only  by  two  hundred  years  from 
the  apostolic  age,  should  forget  the  illegality  (if  we 
may  use  the  term)  of  the  pretext  on  which  they  de- 
manded the  submission  of  their  adversaries.  The 
first  Churches  received  decrees  from  two  sources, 
namely — the  lips  of  the  apostles,  whose  absolute 
power  as  the  Lord's  commiss  oners  was  not  question- 
ed ;  or  from  councils,  in  whi^h  the  brethren  at  large 
had  their  place  and  vote.  But  these  bishops  and 
metropolitans,  although  they  still  convened  the  peo- 
ple in  their  parishes,  and  left  them  a  semblance  of 
their  primitive  liberty,  yet  concerted  every  important 
measure,  and  discussed  all  controversies  in  synods, 
from  which  the  greater  part  of  the  clergy  even,  as 
well  as  the  people,  were  excluded.  For  a  few  of  the 
Rulers  of  the  Church  to  judge  between  themselves 
and  their  opponents,  and  to  roll  thunders  over  the 
heads  of  whoever  resisted  tlieir  authority,  was  nothing 
less  than  an  outrageous  usurpation.  And  yet  it  had 
not  been  by  a  bold  thrust,  or  a  leap,  that  this  point 
of  despotism  had  been  reached ;  but  by  insensible 
degrees :  and  especially  under  favour  of  an  incon- 
siderate application  of  genuine  principles  to  particular 
instances. 

"  Out  of  the  Church  there  is  no  salvation."  Let 
this  be  granted  ;  but  who  is  out  of  the  Church? 
Is  it  those  whom  Hilderbrand  may  have  excommu- 
nicated, or  whom  Gregory  the  Great  may  have 
cursed,  or  whom  Syricius  may  have  condemned,  or 
whom  Lucius,  or  Stephen,  or  Sixtus,  may  have  de- 
nounced as  heretics  and  schismatics?  We  must 
15 


170  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

refuse  to  admit  this  rule,  as  well  in  its  earlier,  as  in 
its  latter  applications ;  and  the  sentence  of  eternal 
damnation,  if  impiously  despotic  when  pronounced 
by  a  pope  that  was  master  of  the  world,  was  so,  not 
the  less,  when  uttered  by  a  pope  who  the  next  day 
might  be  called  to  exchange  the  mitre  for  a  martyr's 
crown. 

A  man  must  stand  firm  indeed  who  is  neither 
drawn  nor  driven  from  his  position  by  a  fierce  assail- 
ant. The  early  defenders  of  the  faith  did  not  so 
know  their  proper  standing,  or  so  adhere  to  it,  as  to 
maintain  the  ground  where  they  mi;.rht  at  once  have 
saved  themselv^es,  and  the  truth,  wiihout  detriment 
to  the  liberties  of  mankind.  In  fact  they  hastened 
to  entrench  thmselves  within  the  lines  of  absolute 
despotism.  The  operation  of  the  several  controver- 
sies, whether  doctrinal  or  ecclesiastical,  that  were 
carried  on  previously  to  the  holding  of  the  council 
of  Nice,  may  very  readily  be  traced,  first,  in  bring- 
ing to  maturity  general  arbitrary  principles  of  church 
government,  and  then  in  inducing  Churches  of 
the  west,  and  of  northern  Africa,  to  yield  themselves 
to  the  pretensions  of  the  bishop  of  Rome,  as  St. 
Peter's  successor,  and  the  rightful  arbiter  of  Chris- 
tendom. The  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  the  Church, 
so  necessary  in  rebuking  schismatics,  seemed  to 
demand  a  visible  concentration  of  all  Churches 
upon  some  one  point ;  and  there  was  no  centre  so 
naturally  looked  to  as  Rome.  If  the  rise  of  the 
papal  tyranny  is  to  be  sought  for,  assuredly  we  must 
not  stop  short  either  in  the  acts  of  Theodosius,  or 
in  the  concessions  of  Justinian  ;  or  in  the  machina- 
tions of  this  or  that  holder  of  the  keys  ;  nor,  in  fact, 
any  where,  till  we  reach  those  bold  and  ambitious 
sentiments  of  the  third  century,  which  may  be  found 
covertly  expressed  in  the  tract,  "  De  Unitate  Ec- 
clesiae,"  andin  the  epistles  of  its  author — the  fervent 


ITS    FIRST    STEPS.  171 

and  pious  Cyprian,   and  in  those  of  several  of  his 
episcopal  contemporaries  and  colleagues. 

Although  there  were  no  evidence  of  another  kind, 
we  should  yet  have,  on  this  ground,  what  is  ample 
and  conclusive  in  proof  of  the  assertion,  that,  long 
before  the  era  of  the  political  triumph  of  Christianity, 
and  while  all  the  movements  of  the  Church  were  as 
purely  spontaneous  as  can  be  imagined,  ecclesiasti- 
cal power  was  condensing  itself  upon  a  centre,  and 
had  made  great  progress  in  digesting  those  arrogant 
principles,  and  in  establishing  those  servile  and  su- 
perstitious usages,  which  the  papacy  of  the  twelfth 
century  brought  fully  to  bear  upon  the  constitution 
of  society  throughout  Europe. 

It  now  remains,  and  in  the  last  place  cursorily  to 
review  the  position  of  Christianity,  or  shall  we  say, 
the  Church,  in  relation  to  mankind  at  large,  and  to 
the  Roman  government,  during  the  early  period  of 
which  we  are  speaking. 

But,  indeed,  though  concerned  in  this  section  with 
the  first  three  centures  of  Christian  histor)^,  especially, 
it  is  impracticable,  in  reference  to  a  matter  so  inde- 
finite as  is  the  general  temper  and  the  intellectual 
and  moral  condition  of  mankind,  to  mark  off  eras 
with  any  precision,  or  to  say  whence  a  certain  dis- 
position of  the  minds  of  men  took  its  rise,  or  when 
it  give  place  to  another.  Facts  of  this  class,  al- 
though in  a  broad  sense  conspicuous  and  unquestion- 
able, are  not  to  be  traced  in  lines  and  colours  upon  a 
chart  of  history. 

Our  present  topic,  although  by  no  means  new  to 
histwical  inquiry,  has  not  perhaps  been  duly  and 
impartially  considered.  The  spiritual  power  which, 
taking  its  spring  from  Christianity,  availed  itself  of 
those  mighty  forces  which  nothing  but  truth  can 
supply,  spread  its  scorciiing  beams  over  the  world, 
and  rose  to  the  zenith,  because  the  heavens — politi- 


172  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

cal  as  well  as  intellectual,  had  been  deserted,  and 
did,  as  one  might  say,  ask  to  be  again  occupied  and 
ruled  :  there  was  a  vacuum  ;  and  the  Church  filled 
it.  From  the  age  of  the  Antonines  (not  to  name  an 
earlier  time)  and  onward,  in  slow  but  regular  pro- 
gression,'as  far  as  to  the  depth  of  that  night  which  at 
length  covered  Europe,  the  humon  mind,  in  every 
sphere  of  its  exercise,  was  failing,  and  decaying,  and 
collapsing.  During  the  same  time,  and  no  doubt 
under  the  influence  of  many  of  the  same  causes,  the 
life  of  the  vast  political  system  of  the  western  world 
sunk  apace,  and  its  coherence  became  every  year 
more  feeble.  Church  Power,  therefore,  stepped  into 
the  room  of  all  other  kinds  of  power  ;  it  inherited  the 
strength  and  the  honours  of  every  expiring  supre- 
macy ;  and  in  turn,  as  every  authority,  and  as  every 
virtue  died  away  intestate,  without  leaving  a  natural 
successor,  the  church  came  forward  to  administer 
to  the  effects  of  all ;  she  grasped  all ;  and  became  at 
length  the  sole  mistress  of  whatever  she  thought 
worth  possessing. 

Now  it  would  be  easy  to  maintain,  consistently 
with  many  facts,  two  or  more  opposing  theories  on 
this  subject ;  as  for  example :  one  might  very  plausi- 
bly trace  the  degeneracy  of  the  human  mind,  and  the 
decline  of  the  empire,  the  extinction  of  science,  the 
corruption  of  manners,  and  the  fall  of  the  state,  sever- 
ally to  those  various  political  and  natural  causes  that 
are  known  to  have  borne  upon  the  social  system  dur- 
ing this  period  of  universal  declension  ;  and  then  it 
might  be  alleged  that  the  Church,  and  we  must  mean 
especially  the  Romish  Church,  came  in,  as  well  to 
rescue,  to  preserve,  and  to  transmit,  no  small  amount 
of  intelligence  and  of  learning,  and  to  hold  the  western 
nations  in  some  sort  of  coherence,  and  to  prevent  the 
frightful  anarchy,  and  to  mitigate  the  utter  barbarism, 
that  must  otherwise  have  prevailed.  It  may  be  said, 
and  with  some  reason,  nor  have  the  apologists  of  the 


ITS    FIRST    STEPS.  173 

papacy  forgotten  to  affirm,  that  the  Church,  during  a 
long  era  of  disorder  and  general  ignorance,  stood  as 
the  guardian  of  manners,  the  preserver  of  literature, 
the  just  mediatrix  between  the  strong  and  the  weak; 
and,  in  a  wurd,  as  the  stay  and  refuge  of  whatever 
was  salutary  and  important,  and  which,  without  her 
aid,  must  inevitably  have  perished.  All  this  may 
fairly  enough  be  advanced. 

On  the  contrary,  those  who  contemplate  the  revo- 
lutions of  opinion  from  an  opposite  position,  may  al- 
lege, and  may  make  itappear  credible,  that  the  general 
decay  of  intelligence,  and  the  decline  and  fall  of  the 
empire,  although  hastened  by  other  causes,  were 
mainly  brought  about  by  the  spread  of  a  rehgious 
system  that  quelled  all  the  active  and  energetic  pas- 
sions, that  suffused  through  the  social  body,  an  effe- 
minate and  desponding  temper,  that  overlaid  both 
business  and  pleasure  with  gloom  and  idle  supersti- 
tions, and  which,  in  a  word,  transferred  to  priests  and 
monks  the  influence  that  heretofore  had  been  exer- 
cised by  soldiers  and  statesmen.  A  great  part  even 
of  this  allegation  may  be  made  good ;  but,  as  those 
who  have  advanced  it  have  generally  been  impelled 
by  a  feeUng  more  hostile  to  Christianity  than  to  su- 
perstition, the  distinction  necessary  to  be  observed  be- 
tween the  two  they  have  designedly  neglected  ;  and 
thus  have  thrown  a  capital  fallacy  into  their  argu- 
ment. 

The  one  of  these  theories,  as  well  as  the  other,  if 
advanced  in  a  categorical  manner,  is  open  to  serious 
exception ;  or,  at  least,  may  so  far  be  confuted  as 
suffices  for  despoiling  its  advocates,  severally,  of  the 
inference  they  would  draw  from  it.  Thus  the  Ro- 
manist can  by  no  means  make  good  his  apology  for 
his  Church,  inasmuch  as  he  cannot  disprove  the 
chargcj  standing  against  her,  of  using  her  power  for 
the  worst  purposes,  and  of  exercising  it  iu  the  w^orst 
spirit.  If  indeed  the  Papacy  were  inherently  the  pro- 
15* 


174  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

tectress  of  humanity,  and  the  patroness  of  know- 
ledge, and  the  guardian  of  civil  liberties,  why,  when 
the  nations  began  to  reclaim  their  liberties,  and  to 
awake  to  the  calls  of  reason,  did  she  so  strenuously 
labour  to  quash  both,  and  to  maintain  the  ancient 
empire  of  ignorance  ?  We  conclude  that  the  benefi- 
cial agency  she  had  at  one  time  exerted,  was  acci- 
dental, and  altogether  foreign  to  her  proper  views  and 
general  femper. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  rebutting  the  inference  of 
sceptics,  we  readily  grant  that  the  r^Tiied  superstition 
favoured  by  the  Church  from  the  third  century,  and 
onwards,  had  a  very  powerful  influence  in  bringing 
on  the  degeneracy  of  the  nations,  and  in  accelerating 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire.  But  then,  we  ask — 
was  this  superstition  Christianity?  When  the  affirm- 
ative is  proved,  we  may  feel  ourselves  interested  in 
the  question. 

This  subject  ought  not  to  be  pursued  on  any  sup- 
position that  assumes  a  single  and  exclusive  cause. 
Fix  on  what  general  principle  we  may,  we  shall  find 
it  to  have  been  both  cause  and  effect ;  or  rather  it  will 
appear  that  causes  and  effects  were  intimately  blend- 
ed, and  that  they  mutually  affected  one  the  other,  in 
a  manner  that  should  preclude  those  simplifications  of 
which  theorists  are  fond. 

To  attribute  the  decline  of  taste  and  intelligence, 
and  the  decay  of  the  Roman  patriotism  and  power, 
to  the  influence  of  Christianity,  abstractedly,  is  a 
calumny  easily  rebutted,  on  several  distinct  grounds. 
For,  in  the  first  place,  this  decay  and  decline,  and  es- 
pecially the  disappearance  of  those  high  sentiments 
upon  which  national  greatness  depends,  had  become 
conspicuous  long  before  Christianity  had  gained  any 
such  ascendency  as  to  enable  it,  in  a  visible  manner, 
to  affect  the  opinions  and  behaviour  of  the  mass  of 
mankind  ;  and  certainly  not  the  upper  and  the  edu- 
cated classes.     If  Grecian  and  Roman    philosophy 


ITS    FIRST    STEPS.  175 

and  literature,  and  if  the  pristine  republican  energy 
and  virtue  had  preserved  their  force  and  brightness 
to  the  time  of  Constantine,  and  then  had  suddenly 
waned,  there  would  indeed  have  been  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  the  new  faith  was  the  main  cause  of  such 
a  revolution.  But  the  scholar  well  knows  that,  in 
regard  to  Roman  literature,  the  Augustan  splendour 
had  long  before  been  dimmed,  and  that,  in  relation 
to  that  of  Greece,  false  taste,  and  a  nugatory  philo- 
sophy, had  come  in  the  place  of  Attic  vigour  and  in- 
telligence. Moreover,  the  historian  knows  equally 
well,  that  public  and  political  virtue  had,  at  the  same 
time,  and  on  both  sides  the  Adriatic,  been  succeeded 
by  the  thorough  corruption,  and  by  those  servile  sen- 
timents which  are  characteristic  of  extensive  military 
despotisms.  To  throw  the  blame  of  this  moral,  men- 
tal, and  political  ruin  upon  Christianity,  is  to  assign 
to  it  a  retrospective  influence,  and  to  make  the  effect 
precede  the  cause  by  a  century  and  a  half  ! 

Furthermore  ;  in  casting  the  eye  over  a  biogra- 
phical chart  of  literary  and  scientific  men,  the  fact 
presents  itself,  beyond  dispute,  that,  so  far  as  learn- 
ing, philosophy,  and  genius — eloquence  and  reason, 
survived  at  all,  either  among  the  Greeks  or  Latins, 
the  Church  might  boast  them  mainly  as  her  own — 
Was  Christianity  indeed  the  leatliern  cup  that'brought 
upon  the  human  mind  its  sleep  of  ages?  How  hap- 
pened if  then  that  pagans  were  the  first,  and  Chris- 
tians the  last — the  last  by  two  centuries,  to  exhibit 
its  stupifying  influence  ?  Who  are  the  pagan  writers 
that  can  be  named  as  recommending  the  ancient 
polytheism  during  that  age  when  Chrysostom,  Je- 
rome, Augustine,  Basil,  and  the  Gregories  wrote 
and  spoke  ?  In  admitting  the  dechne  of  intelligence, 
we  must,  in  all  equit}^,  save  the  fame  of  these  and 
other  illustrious  men,  of  whom  any  age  might  be 
proud  :  and  having  done  so,  may  grant  that,  what- 


176  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

ever  was  not  Cluistiaiij  in  that  era,  was,  indeed 
effete. 

Besides  :  when  we  come  down  to  a  later  and  a  still 
more  degenerate  age,  whatever  influence  the  frivo- 
lous superstition  of  the  times  might  have  in  promo- 
ting this  decay,  Christianity  is  clearly  exempt 
from  the  blame,  inasmuch  as  it  was  no  longer  vir- 
tually extant,  or  not  so  extant  as  to  retain  its  soul 
and  power. 

It  is  not  then  to  any  one  cause,  but  to  many,  and 
these  intimately  commingled,  that  we  must  trace 
the  gradual  desolation,  the  withering,  the  blight,  that 
at  length  overspread  the  once  civilized  world.  Most 
of  these  causes  have  often  enough  been  specifically 
mentioned ;  nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  to  enumerate 
them  here.  Might  we  add  to  the  list  the  mere 
hypothesis — it  can  be  no  more  than  a  conjecture,  of 
a  periodic  physical  'development  and  withdrawment 
— a  rise  and  flill,  of  mental  energy  within  the  human 
system  ?  It  is  at  least  diflicult  to  review  the  fortunes 
of  mankind,  either  on  a  great  scale,  or  within  par- 
ticular spheres,  without  inclining  to  the  supposition 
that  there  are  natural  cycles  of  intelligence,  disturbed 
indeed  by  accidental  causes  ;  at  one  time  lengthened, 
and  at  another  shortened  ;  but  still  returning,  at  not 
very  irregular  intervals  ;  and  in  obedience  to  which 
the  great  community  of  nations,  and  nations  indi- 
vidually, advance  or  recede  on  the  course  of  know- 
ledge and  virtue. 

Be  this  as  it  may ;  what  we  have  to  do  with  is  the 
broad  fact  tliat  those  nations  that  once  were  bound 
together  in  the  bundle  of  the  Roman  empire,  did  at 
last  fall  into  a  state  of  anarchy  and  of  degeneracy, 
such  as  allowed  and  invited  the  spiritual  power  to 
seize  all  kinds  of  authority,  and  to  establish  its  usur- 
pations on  the  firmest  basis.  This  supervening 
church  tyranny  was,  undoubtedly,  and  in  many 
senses,  a  benefit  to  mankind.     During  the  dismal 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  177 

nights  and  days  of  that  general  flood,  the  Church 
was  the  ark  in  which  were  conserved  the  rudiments 
of  our  modern  Hberties,  civilization  and  learning. — 
This  granted,  we  are  then  free  to  pass  what  judgment 
we  think  fit  upon  the  spirit  and  temper  of  the  ascen- 
dant power,  and  upon  the  conduct  of  the  individuals 
who  in  succession  held  its  sceptre. 

But  besides  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the 
moral  and  intellectual  condition  of  the  nations  through 
its  early  era,  there  was  a  specific  relationship  borne 
by  it  to  the  Roman  government  ;  and  we  must  now 
be  understood  to  speak  definitely  of  the  second  and 
third  centuries;  or  the  period  during  which  both  par- 
ties, that  is  to  say,  the  Christian  community,  and  the 
imperial  court,  had  a  distinct  consciousness  of  each 
other  as  hostile  powers. 

We  have  already  said  that,  whether  persecuted  or 
tolerated,  a  religious  community,  numerous,  every 
where  extant,  internally  organized,  and  sensitive 
through  all  its  members,  can  never  be  looked  at  with 
indifference  by  any  government.  Let  it  be  granted 
that  principles  of  peace  and  subordination  pervade 
such  a  body  ;  and  moreover  that,  to-day^  its  feeling 
goes  along  with  the  government,  and  that  its  weight 
is  thrown  into  the  scale  of  the  existing  administra- 
tion. But  to-morrow  changes  take  place  ;  measures 
are  proposed,  or  effected,  which  the  religious  commu- 
nity disapproves,  or  by  which  it  thinks  itself  aggrieved, 
or  endangered.  Will  it  abstain  then  from  using  its 
conscious  power?  Will  it  refrain  from  implicit  threats? 
Spite  of  Christian  meekness,  spite  of  every  motive 
to  the  contrary,  nay,  on  the  very  ground  and  pretext 
of  the  highest  motives,  it  will  act  as  human  nature, 
in  such  circumstances,  impels  ;  and  the  government, 
seeing  things  only  in  a  common  light,  will  find  that 
it  has  to  do  with  a  powerful  and  an  unmanageable 
internal  enemy.  A  well-adjusted  church-and-statepo- 


178  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

lity  recommends  itself,  in  this  special  respect;  not  in- 
deed as  an  infallible  means  of  preventing  collisions  be- 
tween the  religious  and  the  secular  elements  of  the 
social  system  ;  but  as  an  arrangement  which  pro- 
vides against  ordinary  occasions  of  concussion,  and 
as  immensely  better  than  the  -.leaving  two  potent 
principles  open  to  every  caslialty  that  may  throw 
them  rudely  one  upon  the  other. 

The  behaviour  of  the  Christian  community  under 
the  outrageous  violences  of  which  it  was  so  often 
the  victim,  was,  in  most  instances,  unexceptionable 
and  admirable.  So  much  meekness,  so  much  re- 
spect for  authority,  such  abstinence  from  retahative 
conduct  and  vindictive  expressions,  on  the  part  of  a 
body,  numerous  and  physically  strong,  and  not 
always  destitute  of  influence  at  court,  affords  convin- 
cing proof  of  the  divine  excellence  and  efficacy  of 
the  motives  which  the  Gospel  conveys. 

Yet  in  their  remonstrances  with  their  furious  ene- 
mies, the  Christian  apologists  make  a  fair  appeal  to 
the  fact  of  ihe  patience  and  submissiveness,  under  in- 
tolerable wrongs,  of  a  body  of  men  numerous  enough, 
if  they  chose  to  stand  upon  the  defensive,  to  convulse 
the  empire,  if  not  to  make  their  own  terms.  And 
they  well  said,  "  If  we  were  impelled  by  worldly  and 
common  motives,  we  should  certainly  judge  it  better 
to  die  sword  in  hand,  than  at  the  stake." 

This  quiet,  but  significant  allusion  to  their  physi- 
cal force,  and  to  their  organized  power,  naturally  be- 
came more  and  more  frequent  and  distinct ;  and 
whether  openly  spoken  of  or  not,  it  was  thoroughly 
understood,  and  keenly  felt  too  by  the  imperial  go- 
vernment. Perhaps  indeed  the  pohlical  power  of 
the  Chiistians  was  rated  higher  by  the  court,  that 
justly  feared  it,  than  by  the  Church  that  would  not 
indulge  the  thought  of  actually  using  it.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  the  Diocletian  persecution  (not  to  refer 
to  any  other)  afford  indication  enough  of  what  were 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  179 

the  alarms,  and  what  the  desperate  resolution  of  the 
imperial  cabinet.  These  fears,  and  this  line  of  con- 
duct, on  the  one  side,  must,  in  the  end,  have  infused 
a  corresponding  feehng  into  the  Church.  The  two 
powers  were  balancing  and  mutually  measuring  their 
strength  ;  and  if  the  conversion  of  the  court  itself  had 
not  occurred  when  it  did,  nothing  else  seemed  likely 
to  happen,  at  length,  but  an  open  collision,  and  a  ge- 
neral conflict. 

How  far  this  probable  consequence  was  foreseerr 
by  Constantine,  and  how  far  a  regard  to  it  might  af- 
fect his  decision,  we  must  not  surmise;  but  it  may 
be  conjectured  that  he  embraced  the  unconquerable 
doctrine,  and  bowed  to  the  triumphant  cross,  only  in 
time  to  prevent  a  universal  convulsion  ;  and  peihaps 
an  overthrow  of  the  pagan  ascendancy. 

But  what  we  have  here  to  do  with  is  that  interior 
and  unuttered  feeling,  continually  gathering  force, 
which  must  have  worked  in  the  minds  of  Christians, 
and  especially  of  their  chiefs.  The  meekness  of  the 
Gospel  not  forgotten,  and  the  express  precepts  of 
Christ  and  the  apostles  kept  in  view,  it  was  yet  ine- 
vitable that  the  political  weight  of  the  Church  should 
be  pondered,  though  in  silence,  and  that  the  possi- 
bility of  advancing,  and  of  maintaining  too,  a  just 
demand  of  tolerance,  should  be  thought  of  "  We 
will  7iot  use  our  power ;  but  if  we  were  to  use  it,  jus- 
tice must  be  granted  to  us."  Such  was  the  language 
natural  to  men  so  cruelly  and  unwisely  maltreated. 

Now  the  meditation  of  political  strength  directly  pro- 
motes its  consolidation,  and  imparts  to  it  a  consistent 
and  nervous  energy.  The  rulers  of  the  Church  were 
the  heads  of  a  body,  passive  indeed  in  its  principles, 
and  submissive  in  its  conduct ;  but  yet  conscious  of 
its  powers,  and  provoked  to  try  them.  Let  it  be 
granted  that  the  habits  of  feeling,  the  sentiments,  and 
the  schemes,  generated  by  these  circumstances,  ac- 
tually remained  in  a  quiescent  state  up  to  the  moment 


180  SPIRITUAL  DESf  OTISM. 

of  the  accession  of  Constantine.  But  a  deeply  work- 
ing, an  intense  preparation  of  feeling  had  been  made, 
which  would  at  once  expand  and  breathe,  in  a  new 
manner,  when  the  fortunes  of  the  body  took  a  hap- 
pier turn.  The  high  tones,  the  arrogance,  and  the 
intolerance  of  the  Churchmen  of  the  times  of  Con- 
stantine, Jovian,  and  Theodosius,  were  the  outbursts 
of  emotions,  long  pent  up,  and  which  had  reached  a 
vigorous  maturity  when  first  they  made  themselves 
heard  in  the  open  world.  The  gaudy  and  winged 
creature  of  the  fourth  century,  had  had  its  long 
chrysalis  sta  e  in  the  third. 

The  part  acted,  the  language  used,  the  prerogatives 
claimed,  by  the  Church  under  the  first  Christian  em- 
perors, must  not  be  thought  of  as  having  sprung  up 
fresh  at  the  moment :  this  style  was  the  product  of 
the  anterior  season  of  oppression.  In  the  insolent 
behaviour  of  certain  ecclesiastics  towards  emperors 
and  persons  of  high  secular  rank,  one  cannot  but  read 
the  vindictive  sentiment — "  Now  is  our  time  come 
for  revenging  the  Church  upon  the  State."  From 
its  long  schooling  of  persecution,  the  Church  mani- 
festly learned  the  ill  lesson  of  intolerance,  and  in- 
stead of  abhorring  the  usage  and  principle  of  cruelty, 
in  religious  matters,  too  soon  desired  to  try  the 
force  of  it  in  its  controversy  with  heretics.  It  is  a 
great  illusion  to  suppose  that  the  Christian  commu- 
nity, admirable  as  was  its  behaviour,  came  forth  from 
its  three  centuries  of  oppression  and  suffering,  unhurt 
and  pure  in  its  sentiments,  as  a  poHtical  body.  If  we 
will  not  accept  the  open  and  active  friendship  of  the 
secular  authority,  and  if  we  reject  a  cliurch  and  state 
alliance,  we  must  have,  in  its  stead,  an  ominous  jea- 
lousy, and  a  murky  turbulence  (though  repressed) 
which,  if  it  never  breaks  out  in  civil  convulsions,  will 
not  fail  to  nurse  up  a  temper  that  will  show  itself 
internally,  as  a  spirit  of  rancour  and  insubordination. 


ITS  FIRST    STEPS.  181 

It  remains  to  recapitulate  the  heads  of  the  present 
section. 

We  have  affirmed,  and  do  not  anticipate  contra- 
diction from  those  who  themselves  are  conversant 
with  the  existing  documents  of  church  history,  that 
the  spiritual  despotism,  afterwards  brought  to  a  centre, 
and  made  coherent  in  the  papacy,  had  developed 
every  one  of  its  essential  principles  before  the  time  of 
that  political  revolution  which  gave  to  the  Church 
the  aids  of  imperial  patronage;  and  while  every  move- 
ment was  purely  spontaneous,  or  in  other  words, 
while  this  power  stood  on  the  ground  of  spiritual  mo- 
tives, and  stayed  itself  altogether  on  the  fulcrum  of 
opinion. 

During,  and  within  the  limits  of  this  same  pristine 
era,  we  find  the  clergy  to  have  gained  upon  the  peo- 
ple at  large  the  means  of  carrying  despotism  to  any 
extent,  by  challenging  to  themselves  the  possession 
of,  and  irresponsible  control  over,  certain  awful  ele- 
ments indispensable  to  salvation,  and  in  no  other 
manner  to  be  obtained  but  from  the  hand  of  the 
priest.  The  people  moreover  had  been  thrust  from 
their  place  in  the  deliberative  assemblies  held  by  the 
rulers  of  the  society.  These  two  important  changes, 
if  there  had  been  none  other,  were  enough  to  open 
the  way  to  whatever  actually  followed.  In  this  sense 
the  Church,  in  the  age  of  Cyprian,  was  essentially 
despotic. 

Again  ;  by  the  gradual  and  inevitable  aggrandize- 
ment of  the  episcopal  order,  by  the  consolidation  and 
regular  distribution  of  offices,  and  especially  by  the 
exclusion  of  the  inferior  clergy  from  provincial  and 
general  councils,  a  distance  was  interposed  between 
the  several  orders  of  the  Church,  such  as  at  once 
broke  up  the  feeling  of  substantial  equality  that 
should  subsist  among  the  ministers  of  Christ,  and 
gave  the  reins  to  the  few,  in  a  manner  that  could 
issue  in  nothing  else  but  usurpation  and  tyranny — a 
16 


182  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

tyranny  always  advancing.  This  power  of  the  su- 
periors was,  at  the  same  time,  making  preparation 
for  further  encroachments,  within  the  monastery. 

Furthermore ;  the  principles  engendered,  and  the 
practices  resorted  to  in  consequence  of  the  perpetual 
conflicts  carried  on  between  the  Church  and  her  he- 
retical and  schismatic  opponents,  placed  her  in  a  po- 
sition essentially  despotic ;  and  induced  a  feeling 
which  led  her  to  catch  at  the  first  means  that  oc- 
curred of  sustaining  her  authority  by  penal  inflic- 
tions. 

Lastly  :  these  several  preparations  and  advances 
of  despotism  were  made  during  a  course  of  time  in 
which  the  vigour  of  the  human  mind  was  fast  failing, 
and  while  the  political  structure  was  splitting  and 
crumbling  to  its  fall.  Its  ultimate  ascendancy,  there- 
fore, was  little  less  than  an  inevitable  consequence  of 
the  disappearance  of  w^hatever  might  have  stood  in 
its  way.  i 

Some  few  specimens  of  the  evidence  that  might 
be  adduced  in  support  of  the  above  positions,  will  be 
found  at  the  end  of  the  volume.  But  the  author 
feels  confident  that  his  allegations,  in  the  main,  will 
not  be  called  in  question  by  any  who  are  really  qua- 
lified to  express  an  opinion  on  subjects  of  this  kind. 
It  is  indeed  not  unlikely  that,  from  the  pages  of  our 
modern  ecclesiastical  writers  and  church  historians, 
sundry  casual  admissions  and  concessions  may  be 
culled,  of  an  import  opposite  to  the  author's  represen- 
tations. But  of  what  weight  are  such  testimonies, 
in  this  instance  ?  The  facts  in  question  are — the 
temper  and  condition  of  the  Christian  commonwealth 
fifteen  and  sixteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  whence  then 
should  we  seek  our  inforujation  ?  Is  it  from  Tille- 
mont,  Baronius,  Fleury,  Cave,  Usher,  Burnet,  Tay- 
lor, Bull,  Hooker,  Mosheim,  Gibbon  ?  These  great 
writers,  or  if  there  be  a  hundred  more  of  equal  cele- 
brity, and  whatever  might  be  the  depth  of  their  erudi- 


ITS  FIRST  STEPS.  183 

tion,  drew  their  knowledge  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity 
from  no  other  sources  (there  are  no  other)  than  those 
remains  of  christian  literature  which  are  still  extant, 
and  which  now  load  our  shelves,  and  are  under  our 
hand.  Do  they  quote  a  single  ancient  author  who 
has  disappeared  during  the  last  two  centuries  ?  If 
not,  we  are  to-day  as  favourably  placed  as  themselves 
for  acquiring  the  only  information  that  has  in  mo- 
dern times,  been  within  reach,  or  that  is  of  any  deci- 
sive value. 

In  discussions  of  this  order  it  should  be  held  a 
waste  of  time  and  labour,  as  it  is  an  extreme  imper- 
tinence, to  quote  modern  authorities  at  all ;  and  the 
author  must  protest  as^ainst  every  sort  of  evidence  of 
a  secondary  kind.  What  avails  it,  in  such  an  argu- 
ment, that  Bellarmine,  or  Grotius,  or  Parker,  or  Stil- 
lingfleet,  er  Barrow,  or  Bingham,  or  Warburton,  or 
Jortin,  while  intent  upon  some  other  question,  or 
while  seeking  a  casual  illustration  of  a  different  posi- 
tion, have  said  and  admitted  so  and  so,  concerning 
the  primitive  Church?  If  such  admissions  are  vague 
and  general,  they  are  scarcely  worth  turning  aside  to 
gather.  If  founded  upon  specific  references  to  origi- 
nal authorities,  we  have  those  authorities  under  our 
eye,  and  do  far  better  to  peruse  them  for  ourselves, 
than  to  look  at  detached  portions  of  them  through 
the  chromatic  telescope  of  writers  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

The  time  was  when  the  Fathers  were  read  super- 
stitiously,  and  were  regarded  as  our  masters  in  the- 
ology. They  are  now  read  intelligently,  and  as 
authorities  simply  in  questions  of  history.  Our  pre- 
decessors (or  some  of  then))  followed  the  Fathers  for 
guidance  ;  we  follow  them  for  warning.  It  is  in  truth 
an  auspicious  omen  of  the  present  times,  that  an  ac- 
tive and  searching  inquiry  is  on  foot  concerning  the 
history  of  Christianity,  in  its  early  periods,  and  that 
this  inquiry  stops  short  no  where,  but  in  the  extant 


184  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

remains  of  those  very  ages.  Let  the  ignorant,  and 
the  indolent,  and  the  frivolous,  scout  this  diligence  as 
idle  ;  and  let  those  whose  opinions  have  long  been 
crystallized  on  every  subject,  resent  it  as  importunate 
or  pernicious  :  but  minds  ardent  and  free  in  the  pur- 
suit of  truth,  will  not,  for  a  moment,  be  disheartened 
by  any  such  rebukes.  Consequences  of  the  most 
momentous  and  extensive  kind  are  not  unlikely  to 
spring  from  this  anxiety  to  know  the  real  history  of 
our  faith.  It  is  by  the  aid  of  this  sort  of  learning 
that  we  are  set  at  large  from  the  thralls  of  temporary 
and  sectarian  recensions  of  Christianity :  it  is  from 
this  source  that  we  draw  an  enhanced  and  profound 
regard  to  the  infallible  authority  of  Scripture  ;  and  it 
is  also  from  studies  of  this  kind  that  we  may  derive, 
if  at  all,  sound  and  sober  notions  of  those  great  prin- 
ciples of  the  Divine  Government  which  bear  upon 
the  revolutions  of  religious  opinion,  and  upon  the  rise 
and  decay,  the  alternate  corruption  and  renovation^ 
of  the  elements  of  piety. 

The  author  makes  an  apology  to  the  reader  for 
this  digressive  page. 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  185 


SECTION   VI. 


ERA  OF  THE  BALANCE  OF  THE  CIVIL  AND    ECCLESIASTICAL 
POWERS. 

Although  it  may  appear  in  fact,  again  and  again, 
that  seasons  of  external  prosperity  have  favoured  the 
advance  of  abuses,  and  have  promoted  a  worldly  and 
ambitious  spirit  among  Churchmen,  we  are  by  no 
means  compelled,  on  that  ground,  to  grant  that  Chris- 
tianity, in  the  nature  of  things,  can  retain  its  purity 
only  by  the  aid  of  sufferings  and  persecutions.  In 
direct  contradiction  of  any  such  melancholic  principle, 
it  is  enough  to  allege  the  decisive  and  pointed  in- 
stance of  the  apostolic  Churches,  of  which  it  is  affirm- 
ed, at  a  certain  time,  "  that  they  had  rest,"  in  the 
stead  of  persecution,  "  and  were  edified  ;  and  walk- 
ing in  the  fear  of  the  Lord,  and  the  comfort  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  were  multiplied."  Worldly  ease  has  had 
its  evil  consequences  ;  and  so  has  persecution.  If 
there  are  certain  abuses  which  we  trace  to  the  one, 
in  the  history  of  the  Church,  there  are  abuses  also, 
and  some  of  the  most  serious  and  fatal  kind,  that  are 
directly  attributable  to  the  other.  Neither  ease  nor 
affliction,  prosperity  nor  persecution,  is  good  abstract- 
edly, in  relation  to  truth  and  piety  ;  but  both  operate 
for  the  better  or  the  worse,  according  to  the  actual 
state  of  the  mind  that  comes  under  their  operation. — 
Far  from  being  of  opinion  that  religious  prosperity,  in 
the  best  sense,  is  to  be  looked  for  only  as  the  product 
of  storms,  we  allow  ourselves  to  imagine,  as  not  chi- 
merical, a  future  era  of  spiritual  life,  and  a  general 
triumph  of  truth,  which  shall  take  its  start  from  a 
smiHng  morning  of  general  peace,  and  mundane  fe- 
licity. 

16* 


186  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

If  indeed  in  any  case,  truth  has  aheady  undergone 
serious  perversion,  and  if  its  edge  has  been  turned 
aside  by  immoral  interpretations  ;  if  schemes  of  en- 
croachment and  extortion  have  been  devised,  and  put 
in  course,  and  if,  in  a  word,  the  genuine  simplicity 
and  spirituaUty  of  the  Gospel  have  disappeared,  then 
no  doubt  it  must  follow  that  an  exemption  from 
trouble,  and  a  liberty  and  facility  in  giving  effect  to 
such  schemes,  will  hasten  the  advance  of  all  that  is 
mischievous.  This  is  obvious  ;  and  such  we  find  to 
have  been  the  effect  of  each  of  those  seasons  of  re- 
pose that  were  enjoyed  under  even  the  pagan  empe- 
rors. Rest  was  injurious  to  the  Church,  because 
Christianity  had  lost  its  integrity. 

The  pernicious  consequences  that  attended  the  im- 
perfect and  precarious  prosperity  permitted  to  Chris- 
tians from  year  to  year,  during  the  period  of  poly- 
theistic ascendancy,  were  not  likely  to  be  precluded, 
or  to  lose  their  evil  efficacy,  in  that  far  more  settled 
and  genial  summer  time  which  followed  the  submis- 
sion of  the  Roman  Imperial  Power  to  the  Cross. 
What  had  happened  under  Alexander  Severus,  un- 
der Gordian,  and  under  the  Phihps,  would  naturally 
happen  also  under  Constantine  and  Theodosius. — 
Superstition  spread,  debauchery  among  the  clergy 
became  more  flagrant,  and  ambition  and  venality 
more  impudent.  But  what  is  to  be  lamented  or 
blamed  in  all  this,  is  not  that  the  Church  was  in- 
dulged with  an  exemption  from  trouble,  but  that  it 
should  have  been  in  a  state  such  as  made  every  ces- 
sation of  suffering  dangerous  and  corrupting. 

When  we  find  these  errors  and  unchristian  prac- 
tices increasing  gradually,  or  even  rapidly,  after  the 
political  triumph  of  the  Gospel,  we  are  not  to  incul- 
pate the  incidental  means  of  those  unhappy  perver- 
sions ;  but  rather  should  look  to  the  inner  springs  and 
reasons  of  them.  Nor  indeed  was  the  growth  of  su- 
perstition, and  of  corruption,   and  despotism,   in  the 


IN  'I'HE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  187 

age  of  ConstantiaCj  such  as  appears  in  certain  strong- 
ly-coloured statements  of  it.  Or  let  it  have  been 
what  it  might,  it  was  balanced  by  the  expansion  of 
talents  and  merits  of  a  new  and  high  order.  Little 
as  the  moderns  may  wish  to  take  the  divines  of  the 
fourth  century  as  their  masters,  none  who  have  con- 
versed with  them  in  their  writings  will  hesitate  to 
grant  them,  in  the  main,  as  high  a  praise  as  belongs 
to  any  set  of  theologians,  in  any  age.  And  in  com- 
paring the  extant  Christian  literature  of  the  fourth 
century  with  that  of  the  third,  the  advantage  is  very 
far  from  being  decisively  on  the  side  of  the  earlier 
authors,  on  the  ground,  either  of  piety,  or  of  doctrinal 
consistency.  The  very  reverse  might  readily  be 
maintained. 

The  illustrious  and  imperial  convert — the  first 
Christian  prince,  behaved  himself  in  his  new  rela- 
tionship, as  temporal  bridegroom  of  the  Church,  in  a 
manner  regulated,  in  part,  by  the  existing  usages 
and  principles  of  the  Roman  government ;  and  in 
part  by  the  usages  and  principles  which  he  found  pre- 
vaihng  wnthin  the  vast  and  mysterious  comnaunity 
to  which  he  joined  himself.  He  entered  the  awful 
temple  of  the  true  God,  sceptre  in  hand,  and  as 
prince,  conqueror,  and  patron  :  yet  with  a  becoming 
reverence,  and  a  disposition  to  comply  devoutly  with 
the  orders  and  prescriptive  modes  of  the  system  and 
worship  of  the  sacred  precincts.  Constantine  set  his 
foot  upon  the  threshold  of  the  Christian  Church  with 
a  feeling  perhaps,  not  very  unlike  that  which  had 
belonged  to  certain  chiefs  of  the  pristine  Roman  arms, 
who,  in  making  their  way  as  proud  victors  to  the 
fanes  of  a  conquered  nation,  bowed  to  the  humiliated 
divinity  of  the  place,  and  hastened  to  prove  that  they 
approached  the  foreign  altar,  not  as  destroyers,  but  as 
worshippers. 

While  considering  the  course  pursued  by  Constan- 


188  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

tine,  from  first  to  last,  in  relation  to  the  Churcbj  we 
are  bound  to  keep  in  view,  on  the  one  hand,  his  habits 
and  maxims  as  a  Caesar ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the 
existing  sentiments,  and  the  ecclesiastical  economy  of 
the  Christian  commonwealth.  If  we  are  speaking  of 
his  personal  merits,  in  his  public  religious  capacity, 
nothing  can  be  more  inequitable  than  either  to  judge 
him  by  the  rule  we  should  apply  to  a  modern  Euro- 
pean prince ;  or  to  assume,  what  is  as  far  as  possible 
from  being  true,  that  the  Church  was  then  fresh  in 
her  simplicity  ;  or  that  the  mass  of  the  people  (within 
the  Church)  were  in  possession  of  any  substantial 
liberties  ;  or  that  the  political  rulers  of  the  body  were 
still  in  a  state  to  be  spoiled,  and  to  be  taught  the  bad 
lessons  they  might  learn  at  court,  of  ambition,  intrigue, 
and  cupidity. 

The  abstract  justice  of  the  emperor's  measures,  or 
their  ultimate  expediency,  or  their  compatibility  with 
the  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  is  one  thing  ;  but  his  personal 
merits,  fairly  regarded  in  the  light  of  his  age  (not  in 
that  of  our  own)  is  quite  another;  and  in  this  latter 
view  there  is  reason  to  admire,  as  well  the  vigour  and 
intelligence,  as  the  moderation  and  equity  of  his  pub- 
lic conduct.  In  those  instances  where  his  general 
consistency  gave  way,  or  his  temper  failed,  we  may  al- 
most always  trace  his  fault  to  the  insufferable  perversi- 
ty, or  the  violence  and  contumacy,  of  the  parties  that 
opposed,  or  of  those  that  advised  him.  He  and  his  suc- 
cessors cordially  desired,  and  laboured  to  promote,  the 
universal  ascendancy  of  Christianity,  as  the  only  true 
rehgion.  He  and  they,  moreover,  sought  the  peace 
of  the  Church,  and  its  good  order  and  unity.  They 
felt  that  a  religion,  more  potent  in  its  influence  over 
the  minds  of  men  than  any  other,  and  at  the  same 
time  generating  discords  such  as  no  other  religion  had 
presented,  and  which  convulsed  and  endangered  the 
state,  demanded  a  watchful  control,  and  needed  the 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  189 

most  vigorous  measures  to  prevent  its  bringing  about, 
at  once,  its  own  destruction,  and  that  of  the  empire. 

To  reduce  this  vast  system  into  a  state  of  analogy 
with  the  machinery  of  government,  to  estabhsh  a 
good  understanding  between  the  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical authorities,  and  especially  to  repress,  if  possible, 
tumultuous  and  violent  contentions,  must  have 
seemed  to  the  Christian  emperors  their  manifest 
duty,  and  their  interest.  Nothing  less  than  the 
efl'ecting  of  these  several  objects,  could  consist  with 
the  welfare  of  the  vast  society  of  nations  for  which 
they  had  to  care.  A  complicated  system  of  spiritual 
government  they  found  already  matured  ;  although 
it  was  ill-organized,  and  in  disorder,  and  a  system 
essentially  despotic.  The  first  Christian  princes 
(hke  those  of  the  Lutheran  reformation)  transferred 
powers  and  authorities  from  one  centre  to  another ; 
but  did  not  despoil  the  community  of  any  liberties 
then  actually  enjoyed.  Constantine,  or  his  sons  and 
successors,  might  indeed  hold  a  chain,  and  tighten 
it ;  but  they  did  not  forge  one.  The  chain  of  spirit- 
ual despotism  had  been  beaten  and  wreathed  upon 
the  anvil  (or  altar)  of  the  non-estabhshed,  voluntary, 
and  afflicted  Church  of  the  third  century. 

Duly  and  equitably  weighed,  the  public  measures 
of  Constantine,  and  of  the  more  enlightened  and  up- 
right of  his  successors,  are  hable  to  little  blame,  and 
may  even  challenge  much  praise.  But  the  question 
is  altogether  of  another  kind,  when  we  come  to  in- 
quire into  the  abstract  policy,  or  mere  justice  and 
lawfulness  of  these  same  proceedings.  It  has  been 
the  practice  of  a  certain  class  of  modern  writers,  first 
to  assume  theoretic  principles  in  relation  to  external 
Christianity  (and  principles  of  a  very  questionable 
sort)  and  then  to  arraign  the  conduct  of  the  Roman 
prince  as  amenable  to  that  hypothetic  rule ;  and 
especially  have  such  writers  assumed  that  the  Church, 
at  the  moment  of  his  conversionj  was  in  the  main 


190  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

free,  pure,  and  unsophisticated.  What  more  unfair 
or  unfounded  ! 

But  we  have  done  with  the  personal  merits  of 
Constantine,  and  the  succeeding  Christian  emper- 
ors ;  and  turn  for  a  moment  to  their  measures,  ab- 
stractedly considered.  Now  even  if  it  should  appear 
that  these  measures,  or  some  of  them,  were  essen- 
tially impohtic  and  pernicious  (which  is  more  than 
ought  to  be  summarily  granted)  no  such  inference 
will  follow,  as  that  no  pubhc  measures,  or  no  state 
policy  whatever,  in  relation  to  the  church,  can  be 
good  and  lawful.  What  if  Constantine,  upon  ground 
so  new  and  difficult,  failed  and  went  astray?  Is  it 
therefore  certain  that  no  safe  path  may  be  found 
over  that  ground  ?  we  think  not ;  and  must  reject 
every  general  conclusion,  drawn  from  the  conduct 
and  policy  of  the  first  Christian  princes,  against  na- 
tional ecclesiastical  constitutions.  If  we  reasonably 
dechne  to  take  these  inexperienced  princes  as  our 
masters  and  guides,  in  matters  of  church  polity,  we 
are,  of  course,  exempted  from  every  inference  that 
might  be  drawn  from  the  ill  success  of  their  actual 
measures.  Our  own  may  be  better  devised,  and 
may  be  more  conformed  to  the  great  and  now  well 
ascertained  principles  of  political  and  religious  liberty. 

''The  things  that  happened  aforetime,  are  re- 
corded for  our  learning,  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the 
world  are  come."  If  the  first  and  the  second  grand 
experiments  for  the  adjustment  of  the  religious  inter- 
ests of  communities,  have  failed,  the  course  sug- 
gested, by  such  admonitory  errors,  is  not  to  abandon 
so  reasonable  and  necessary  a  work,  or  to  leave  un- 
controlled that  which  must  quickly  run  into  confu- 
sion, if  neglected  ;  but  rather  to  turn  the  errors  of  our 
predecessors  to  advantage,  and  to  do  better,  what 
they  did  ill.  Sixteen  or  eighteen  hundred  years  have 
not  run  out,  as  it  were  under  our  .eyes,  without  yield- 
ing some  definite  and  practical  instructions.     There 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  191 

is  now  no  need  that  we  should  err,  as  our  precursors 
have  done,  for  want  of  experience.  If  the  task  of 
fitting  the  civil  and  religious  machineries,  one  to  the 
other,  has  hitherto  baffled  those  who  have  attempted 
it,  we  may  succeed  better.  We  see  the  sources  of 
failure  ;  the  false  routes  are  laid  down  in  our  charts  ; 
and  every  kind  of  necessary  information  is  fully  at 
our  command.  Although  therefore  the  entire  church 
and  state  system,  such  as  it  subsisted  in  times  gone 
by,  should  be  adjudged  faulty,  we  do  not  conclude 
that  a  churcl>and-state  system  is  either  undesirable  or 
impracticable. 

But  in  what  did  the  first  political  establishment 
of  Christianity  under  Constantine,  and  his  immedi- 
ate successors,  actually  consist  ?  This  subject,  mis- 
understood and  misrepresented  as  it  often  is,  well 
deserves  a  little  analysis.  It  has  not  been  unusual, 
and  especially  of  late,  to  talk  of  the  Church,  estab- 
lished under  Constantine,  as  if  it  were  the  same 
thing,  or  nearly  the  same  thing,  as  the  Church  es- 
tablished in  these  realms,  or  in  other  Protstant  coun- 
tries. No  supposition  can  be  more  incorrect,  not  to 
say  delusive  :  in  truth,  all  reasoning  from  the  one  to 
the  other  of  two  systems  so  dissimilar,  must  be  un- 
sound. The  faults  of  Constantino's  church  pohty, 
be  they  what  they  might,  are  not  the  faults  of  ours  ; 
nor  did  the  precautions  and  limitations  which  attach 
to  ours,  belong  to  his.  And  again,  the  peculiar  diffi- 
culties which,  in  the  present  times,  and  in  this  coun- 
try, attend  all  ecclesiastical  arrangements,  had  no 
existence,  and  were  not  to  be  provided  for  in  that 
age.  The  very  measures  which,  with  the  emperors, 
were  resorted  to  for  the  regulation  of  church  power, 
and  which  then  must  have  been  regarded  as  bene- 
ficial in  their  aspect  towards  the  people,  would, 
among  ourselves,  be  denounced  as  either  ineffica- 
cious, or  as  intolerable.     What  might  be  defensible, 


192  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

or  even  praiseworthy,  in  the  pohcy  of  Constantine, 
or  Theodosius,  we  justly  condemn  when  imitated 
by  our  Tudors  and  Stuarts,  and  should  resolutely 
resist  if  attempted  in  our  own  times. 

Constantine's  establishment  of  Christianity,  in  the 
first  place,  consisted  in  reversing  all  those  prohibitory 
edicts  of  his  predecessors  which  hitherto  had  armed 
its  enemies  ;  and  in  declaring  it  to  be — a  Lawful 
Religion. 

This  preliminary  measure  of  mere  justice  none 
will  now  condemn  ;  and  yet  in  fact,  by  far  the  larger 
proportion  of  all  the  pride,  profligacy  and  ambition, 
which  spread  among  the  clergy  in  the  fourth  century, 
may  be  directly  traced  to  the  inevitable  influence  of 
this  sudden  and  complete  change  of  fortune,  and  this 
start  in  their  relative  position.  A  long  ten  years  of 
the  most  cruel  sufferings,  had  almost  broken  the 
hearts  of  the  Christian  community.  Multitudes  had 
lost  their  property,  and  their  place  in  society  ;  many 
had  perished ;  pastors  and  deacons  were  labouring  in 
the  mines  ;  congregations  were  every  where  disper- 
sed, the  offices  of  religion  suspended,  and  the  sacred 
books  destroyed  ;  or  if  concealed,  w^ere  become  the 
most  dangerous  sort  of  possession.  It  might  have 
seemed  not  unlikely  that  the  Church  would  now 
actually  fall  and  be  trampled  in  the  dust  under  the 
feet  of  her  determined  foes.  That  happy  revolution, 
to  which  the  doubtful  fortune  of  arms  gave  effect, 
could  not  have  been  distinctly,  and  perhaps  not  at  all 
anticipated.  "  When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  cap- 
tivity of  his  people,"  they  must  have  felt  like  those 
who  awake  from  a  horrid  dream  to  a  bright  reality. 

The  first  emotions  of  all  pious  minds  were  no 
doubt  of  a  becoming  and  fervent  sort.  Aloud  they 
offered  praise  to  Him  who  had  ''  turned  their  mour- 
ning into  dancing,"  and  had  given  them  "  beauty 
for  ashes."     But  other  feehngs  wonld  ere  long  claim 


ITS  FIRbT  STEPS.  193 

their  turn,  and  especially  so  with  the  many  whose 
piely  was  of  a  slight,  or  of  a  fenatical  kind.  In  all 
private  circles,  from  side  to  side  of  the  empire,  in 
every  city  and  town,  there  would  spring  up  the  ex- 
ulting and  half-vindictive  sentiment,  natural  to  the 
wronged,  when  the  tables  are  turned  upon  their  op- 
pressor?. The  bounds  of  modesty  and  meekness 
would  not  always  be  observed  in  the  triumphant  joy 
of  the  now  emancipated  sect.  In  fact,  we  catch  dis- 
tinctly enough,  in  tlie  extravagant  harangues  pro- 
nounced at  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs,  the  couched 
resentment  of  the  Church  toward  her  fallen  adversa- 
ry :  the  feeling — and  how  natural  a  feeling  is  it, 
and  how  difficult  to  repress,  which  heaves  the  bosom 
in  the  recollection  of  cruel  injuries,  continues  long 
to  mingle  itself  intimately  with  all  the  sentiments  of 
religious  sufferers  ;  and  is  even  transmitted  from  age 
to  age.  Not  a  few  of  the  pernicious  observances  of 
later  times  sprung  immediately  from  feelings  of  this 
semi-vindictive  sort. 

Then  again,  the  mere  toleration  of  Christianity, 
and  the  favour  and  countenance  it  of  course  enjoy- 
ed at  court,  apart  from  any  of  those  measures  by 
which  its  political  establishment  was  effected,  instan!- 
ly  acted,  like  a  sudden  breaking  forth  of  a  sultry  sun 
in  a  humid  day,  upon  all  ambitious  and  secular 
spirits.  What  were  the  ideas  that  crowded  into  the 
minds  of  metropolitans  and  bishops,  nay,  of  the 
worldly  clergy  of  every  grade,  who  already  had  made 
great  progress  in  effecting  their  schemes  of  aggran- 
dizement ?  Such,  or  at  least  all  whose  position 
favoured  their  desires,  turned  their  foces  toward  the 
quarter  of  sunshine  ;  and  at  the  earliest  opportunity 
brought  tliemselves  individually  under  the  imperial 
eye.  The  most  rigid  and  mortified  of  our  modern 
sects  might  perhaps,  in  parrallel  circumstances,  be 
seen  to  furnish  not  a  few  clerical  persons,  equally 
ready  to  enjoy  the  genial  temperature  of  a  palace, 
17 


194  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

and  to  deck  themselves  in  the  unwonted  finery  of  a 
court. 

It  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  the  now  Chris- 
tian emperor  should  surround  himself  with  Christian 
bishops,  and  put  himself,  in  religious  matters,  under 
the  tutelage  and  direction  of  those  whom  he  might 
judge  qualified  lo  inform  him  in  what  related  to  the 
Church — its  doctrine  and  its  government.  Without 
any  positive  establishment  of  Christianity,  and  while 
nothing  was  done  which,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
could  be  avoided — if  the  Gfospel  was  to  take  the 
place  of  the  ancient  idolatries,  it  would  yet  inevitably 
happen,  that  very  powerful  excitements  should  be 
put  in  activity,  to  stir  whatever  elements  of  ambition 
might  lurk  in  the  bosom  of  the  Christian  communi- 
ty, and  especially  of  its  clergy.  To  receive  these 
excitements  well,  and  to  use  them  moderately,  the 
Church  was  not,  in  its  actual  state,  prepared  to  do  ; 
and  the  sober  common-place  feeling  that  belongs  to 
persons  of  high  ecclesiastical  rank,  within  an  old 
establishment,  who  in  mixing  with  statesmen  and 
princes,  are  conscious  of  no  elation,  could  not  gene- 
rally attach  to  the  Christian  bishops  and  clergy  who 
flocked  around  the  throne,  and  thronged  the  impe- 
rial court  of  Constantine. 

Instead  then  of  repeating  the  vague  and  illusive 
allegation,  that  the  political  establishment  of 
Christianity  spoiled  the  spirituality  of  the  Church, 
and  rendered  it  ambitious,  proud,  and  secular,  let  us, 
with  a  more  exact  regard  to  facts,  be  content  to  say, 
that,  so  far  as  ambition,  pride,  and  secularity,  really 
appear  to  have  advanced  in  the  Church  of  the  fourth 
century,  as  compared  with  the  Church  of  the  thirdj 
this  unhappy  deterioration  resulted  from  the  sudden 
change  of  its  condition,  and  from  those  new  circum- 
stances of  ease,  security,  and  favour,  which  unavoid- 
ably attended  the  revolution  of  opinion  at  the  impe- 
rial court. 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  195 

If  nothing  had  been  attempted  by  Constantine  in 
church  affairs,  beyond  what  the  most  rigid  modern 
advocates  of  the  non-establishment  principle  might 
approve,  or  in  other  words,  if  he  had  simply  tolerated, 
and  personally  favoured  Christianity,  there  is  no  room 
to  think  that  the  danger  to  the  simplicity  and  purity 
of  the  Church  would  have  been  much  less  than  ac- 
tually it  was.  The  mitred  chiefs  of  Constantinople, 
Antiochj  Alexandria,  and  Rome,  would  not,  any  the 
more,  have  paused  on  the  course  upon  which  already 
they  had  gone  so  far.  The  clerical  body,  generally, 
would  not  have  receded  to  the  point  of  apostolic  hu- 
mility and  disinterestedness.  The  church  chest  would 
not  have  been  shut  against  the  further  liberality  of 
the  people.  No  profitable  superstition  would  have 
been  exploded,  no  mummery  laid  aside.  The  ghostly 
temple  of  tyranny,  to  which  the  Gregories,  the  Ur- 
bans,  and  the  Innocents  of  after  times  put  their  mas- 
ter hands,  would  yet  have  gone  on,  slowly  and  se- 
curely rising  to  the  heavens,  upon  the  broad  founda- 
tions laid  in  tears  and  blood  by  the  martyr-bishops  of 
the  pristine  ages. 

The  first  of  Constantine's  measures,  in  regard  to 
the  Church,  was,  as  we  see,  one  of  mere  justice;  and 
so  was  the  second  ;  nor  can  either  be  made  to  bear 
the  blame  of  those  ill  consequences  which,  in  the  ac- 
tual state  of  the  Christian  community,  were  their  na- 
tural results.  At  the  time  of  the  issuing  of  the  terri- 
ble edict  of  Nicomedia,  the  Churches,  in  all  the  more 
opulent  parts  of  the  Roman  empire,  were  in  posses- 
sion of  great  wealth — the  fruits  of  the  voluntary  prin- 
ciple, and  which  consisted,  not  merely  in  money, 
plate,  jewels,  spices,  and  costly  vestments,  but  in 
houses  and  lands.  The  revenues  of  this  wealth,  toge- 
ther with  the  copious  and  perpetual  stream  of  offer- 
ings, laid  weekly  upon  the  altar,  and  which  consisted, 
as  well  of  money,  as  of  provisions  of  every  kind,  ena- 


196  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM; 

bled  the  bishops  and  metropohtans  not  only  (o  sup- 
port large  establishments,  but  to  retain  around  (liem, 
one  might  say,  swarms  of  ecclesiastics,  of  every  grade  : 
and  moreover  to  make  distributions  among  the  poor 
to  an  extent  thaf,  no  doubt,  liad  great  influence  in 
swelling  the  numbers  of  tbe  Church,  and  that  formed 
a  silentj  but  efficacious  counterpoise  to  tlie  occasional 
dangers  and  sufferings  incident  to  a  Christian  profes- 
sion. 

Unlike  as  were  these  religious  corporations,  in 
most  respects,  to  any  tbing  heretofore  seen  in  the  Ro- 
man world,  their  property  would,  in  tlie  eye  of  the 
law,  be  at  once  regarded  as  analogous  to  the  posses- 
sions and  revenues  of  the  pagan  hierarchies  and  tem- 
ples. Nor  could  a  question  arise,  on  the  point  of  ab- 
stract justice,  concerning  the  right  of  the  holders  or 
trustees  of  this  wealth.  The  amount  of  it  might  in- 
deed be  highly  prejudicial  to  the  religious  well-being 
of  the  Church;  the  motives  of  those  wbo  received^ 
and  the  conduct  of  those  who  bestow^ed  it,  might  be 
liable  to  the  most  serious  exceptions ;  and  no  doubt, 
in  some  instances,  the  worst  sort  of  influence  had 
been  exerted  to  obtain  that,  in  the  granting  of  which 
creditors,  orphans^  or  relatives,  w^ere  grievously 
wronged.  But  with  considerations  of  this  sort  the  go- 
vernment had  nothing  to  do.  Law  did  not  apply  to 
abuses  of  this  order ;  nor  could  it,  on  any  principle,  be 
required  of  the  emperor  that  he  should,  in  relation  to 
funds  already  accumulated,  inquire  into  the  particular 
sources  whence  they  had  flowed  ;  or  ask  whether 
they  had  most  benefited  or  injured  the  community. 

It  was,  we  say,  a  measure  of  mere  justice  to  au- 
thenticate the  titles  and  possessions  of  religious  corpo- 
rations; that  is  to  say,  of  the  Christian  Churches. 
Nor  was  it  much  more  than  just  to  insist  upon  the 
restitution  of  houses  and  lands  which,  during  the  late 
years  of  cruel  persecution,  had  been  wrenched  from 
the  hands  of  the  bishops  by  their  rapacious  pagan 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.        197 

fellow  citizens.  This  measure,  in  itself  equitable,  was 
moreover  recommended  to  the  approval  of  all,  by  the 
liberality  of  the  emperor,  who  met  the  difficulty  that 
arose  in  instances  where  such  properties  had  passed 
into  other  hands,  by  fair  purchase ;  and  where  the 
spoliator  could  not  be  found,  or  be  made  to  refund. 

On  grounds  of  general  equity  and  the  usage  of 
civilized  nations,  this  main  act  of  Constantino's  reli- 
gious administration  cannot  be  condemned;  nor  are 
the  principles  or  practices  of  any  existing  religious 
parties  such  as  may  entitle  them  to  blame  it.  And 
yet,  this  same  measure  of  justice  did,  in  its  actual  ef- 
fect upon  the  Christian  commonwealth,  by  suddenly 
restoring  to  the  Churches  large  possessions,  by  secu- 
ring to  them,  in  the  fullest  manner,  what  they  had 
preserved,  and  by  opening  and  fencing,  for  the  clergy, 
the  broad  road  of  cupidity  and  spiritual  fraud,  pro- 
duce very  ill  consequences,  and  facilitate  the  advance 
of  every  superstition  and  every  solemn  mockery. 

The  pure  voluntary  principle,  as  applied  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  clergy,  had,  at  the  close  of  the 
third  century,  reached  a  point  at  which,  as  well  for 
the  good  of  the  communit}^,  as  for  the  preservation 
and  honour  of  tlie  Church,  it  needed  some  effectual 
check.  Such  a  check,  drawii  from  motives  of  good 
sense  or  piety,  was  not  available  ;  and  nothing  could 
have  taken  hold  of  it  but  a  vigorous  interference  on 
the  part  of  the  State  ;  or  in  other  words,  the  bringing 
to  bear  upon  the  abused  and  superstitious  prodigality 
of  the  people,  the  Church  and  State  principle  ;  not 
indeed  by  peremptory  prohibitions  (except  in  the  mat- 
ter of  bequests)  but  by  substituting  a  definite  and 
well  regulated,  for  an  indefinite  and  grossly  deranged 
system. 

There  is  not  a  despotic  machination,  there  is  not 

an  encroachment  upon  the  natural  or  religious  rights 

of  mankind,  there  is  not  a  perversion  of  doctrine,  or 

a  superstition,    or  a  farsical  usage  of  a  later  and 

!?• 


198  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISWy 

darker  age,  which  may  not,  directly  or  indirectly,  be 
traced  to  tlie  license  and  encouragement  given  to  the 
sacerdotal  body  to  work  upon  the  religious  prodigality 
of  the  people — as  well  the  dying  as  the  living.  It 
may  indeed  be  imagined  that  the  Church,  in  the 
time  of  Constantine,  had  sunk  into  a  condition  past 
remedy,  or  past  any  remedy  which  the  State  had  the 
power  to  apply  ;  yet  this  is  not  certain  ;  and  some- 
thing remedial  might  have  been  attempted  :  but  then 
that  something  must  have  consisted  in  bringing  for- 
ward the  Establishment  Principle  in  a  way 
not  then  thought  of,  and  which  we  may  well  sup- 
pose the  clear-sighted  chiefs  of  the  then  voluntary 
Church  would  by  no  means  have  submitted  fo. — 
Bishops,  and  their  clergy,  understood  their  interests 
far  too  well  to  have  accepted  even  a  munificent  de- 
finite maintenance,  in  lieu  of  the  free  offerings  of 
their  flocks,  and  on  the  condition  of  declining  those 
gratuities. 

We  are  perpetually  hearing  from  certain  quarters^ 
of  the  first  political  establishment  of  Christianity  as 
the  fatal  blow  which  brought  the  true  Church  to  the 
ground,  and  laid  her  celestial  honours  in  the  dust. — 
A  mistake  indeed  !  Beside  that  Christianity  was  then 
already  deeply  stained  with  earthly  impurities,  it 
may,  on  the  most  substantial  grounds  be  affirmed,, 
that  it  was  the  want  of  a  well-devised  church-and- 
state  system — the  want  of  an  Establishment,  which 
made  the  revolution  at  court  in  favour  of  Christianity 
extensively  and  lastingly  injurious  to  the  Christian 
commonwealth.  Adhering  still  to  the  line  of  proba- 
bihty,  we  may  easily  imagine  a  system  which  would 
have  given  a  new  turn  to  the  fortunes  of  the  Church 
(if  the  phrase  may  be  allowed)  would  have  arrested 
the  papal  usurpation,  would  have  broken  up  the  con- 
centration of  spiritual  powers,  would  have  starved  the 
monastery  (a  discipline  which  the  professors  of  ex- 
t4reme  abstemiousness  ought  to  have  meekly  received) 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  199 

would  have  destroyed  the  marketable  quality  of  su- 
perstilion,  and,  in  a  word,  would  have  reduced  church 
corruption  and  ambition  within  some  limits  of  mo- 
desty and  reason. 

The  imperial  catechumen  might  indeed  be  permit- 
ted to  summon  oecumenic  councils ;  and  migfit  be 
allowed,  when  they  were  convened,  to  occupy  a 
humble  stool  on  the  floor  of  the  hall,  in  the  midst  of 
the  mitred  fathers;  and  he  might  find  leave  too  to 
utter  his  opinions  on  points  of  theology  :  but  it  may 
well  be  doubted  if  he  was  at  any  time  so  firmly  seated 
in  the  chair  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy — although  by 
his  adulators  styled  "  chief  bishop  of  the  Church,"  as 
would  have  enabled  him  to  give  eflfcct  to  reasonable 
and  necessary  restrictive  financial  measures.  But  let 
it  be  supposed  that  so  much  power  was  actually  at 
his  command,  what  then  were  those  measures  which 
sound  policy  and  a  just  regard  to  the  interests  as  well 
of  the  Church  as  of  the  empire  demanded  ? 

In  the  first  place,  a  provision  of  the  most  peremp- 
tory sort  was  needed,  not  less  in  regard  to  the  ultimate 
welfare  of  the  clergy,  than  for  the  sake  of  the  com- 
munity at  large,  against  the  corrupt  influence  exert- 
ed by  the  former  over  feeble,  and  guilty,  and  alarmed 
consciences,  in  obtaining  bequests  to  the  Church. — 
On  high  tlieoretic  grounds,  indeed,  and  if  it  be 
held  always  an  outrage  for  the  magistrate  to  come  in 
between  the  souls  of  men  and  the  priest,  any  statute 
aimed  against  alienations  in  mortmain  must  be  con- 
demned. A  man,  whether  ill  informed  in  theology 
or  not,  is  actually  of  opinion  that  his  soul  will  fare 
the  better  in  the  next  world,  in  consequence  of  his 
robbing  his  children,  and  bequeathing  his  estate  to 
the  Church  ;  is  it  not  then,  it  may  be  asked,  a  grie- 
vous infringement  of  religious  liberty  to  deny  him  the 
opportunity  of  doing  so?  The  wisest  communities, 
in  modern  times,  have  thought  otherwise;  nor  have 
they  scrupled  to  interdict,  at  least  the  worst  excesses 


200  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

of  this  pernicious  superstition.  If  some  such  prohibi- 
tion could  have  been  effected  (and  we  may  well  doubt 
its  practicability)  nothing,  probably,  would  have  had 
a  more  beneficial  and  extensive  influence  in  staying 
the  advance  of  religious  abuses.  Simply  to  have 
declared  null  and  void  every  bequest,  whether  made 
in  the  article  of  death,  or  previously,  in  favour  of 
religious  corporations,  would  have  given  a  new  aspect 
to  church  history. 

Then  again  a  reasonable  extension  of  the  very 
same  legislative  principle  should  have  been  made  to 
touch  the  monastic  system  in  a  capital  article  of  its 
polity.  Had  those  establishments  been  forcibly 
brought  to  stand  upon  the  ground  of  the  motives 
professed  by  their  inmates,  the  entire  system  of  far- 
sical  poverty  would  instantly  and  permanently  have 
been  reduced  to  its  natural  dimensions  :  nor  could 
the  folly  have  gone  on,  as  in  fact  it  did,  to  swallow 
up  the  wealth  of  Christendom.  The  papacy,  de- 
prived of  its  monkish  cliampions,  could  never  have 
reared  its  despotism  to  the  skies.  Now,  be  it  re- 
membered, that  the  fundamental  principle  of  the 
monastic-life — the  principle  stiffly  insisted  upon,  and 
boasted  of  by  its  earliest  promoters,  was  that  of  a 
death  to  the  world,  to  its  possessions,  its  relationship, 
its  hopes,  its  pleasures,  and  its  duties.  In  the  eye  of 
others,  and  by  his  own  avowal,  the  monk  stepped 
into  his  grave  when  he  entered  his  cloister :  the  law 
then  should  have  taken  him  at  his  word  ;  and  should 
have  put  his  lofty  professions  to  the  reasonable  test 
of  requiring  him  to  bequeath  his  goods  to  his  rela- 
tives. The  statute  of  mortmain  (had  such  a  statute 
been  in  operation)  should  have  attached  those  who 
announced  themselves  to  be  civilly  and  socially 
defunct ;  and  instead  of  their  being  allowed  to  throw 
their  fortune,  whatever  it  might  be,  into  the  chest  of 
the  religious  house,  which  was  to  be  their  sepulchre, 
they  should  have  been  compelled  to  divide  it  among 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  201 

the  living.  A  measure  of  this  sort,  though  at  vari- 
ance with  the  doctrine  of  religious  liberty,  as  inter- 
preted by  some,  might  have  saved  Europe  a  thou- 
sand years  of  superylition. 

It  might  seem  too  bold  an  assertion  to  say  that 
the  master-spring  of  the  religious  system  of  the 
fourth  century  was,  the  command  which  the  clergy 
had  then  got  of  the  sources  of  wealth  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  the  play  they  had  contrived  to  give  to  the 
voluntary  principle.  INo  revision  of  theological  dog- 
mas, no  new  canons  of  discipline,  no  ecclesiastical 
sumptuary  laws,  would  probably  have  done  so  much 
toward  bringing  back  the  purity  and  disinterested- 
ness of  Christian  practice  and  principle,  as  might 
the  simple  establishment  of  an  efficient  financial  sys- 
tem, such  as  should  have  superseded,  or  gradually 
have  turned  off,  the  unbounded  profusion  of  the  peo- 
ple toward  their  clerg}^,  and  have  introduced  a  defi- 
nite and  moderate,  yet  a  sufficient  public  provision 
for  their  maintenance.  From  the  days  of  Trenaeus, 
the  clergy  had  been  making  frequent  references  to 
the  Levitical  institution.  They  might  then  fairly 
have  been  required  to  accept  for  themselves  an  ana- 
logous system.  The  then  existing  property  of  the 
Church  being  secured  to  it,  would  have  afforded  a 
revenue  fully  adequate  to  the  support  of  a  proper 
episcopal  splendour,  and  to  the  defraying  of  inciden- 
tal charges.  Beyond  this,  an  impost,  equitably  asses- 
sed upon  real  property,  might,  without  being  felt  as 
oppressive,  have  yielded  a  reasonable  competency  to 
so  many  of  the  ministers  of  religion  as  were  actually 
employed  in  useful  services  :  and  then  a  vast  bene- 
fit would  have  been  done  to  the  Church,  and  to  the 
community,  by  turning  adrift  the  hundreds  of  sur- 
pliced  idlers  that  swelled  the  episcopal  pageant  in  all 
the  great  cities. 

Those  who  please  may  insist  upon  abstract  doc- 
trines.     Meanwhile,   looking  at  simple  facts,  in  a 


202  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

commorij  and  not  a  theoretic  light,  we  venture  to 
affirm  it  as  probable,  that,  if  Constantine's  Christian 
EstabHshment  had  indeed  been  such,  in  the  modern 
sense  of  the  term,  and  had  inckided  a  just  and  uni- 
form financial  system,  displacing  the  abused  volun- 
tary principle,  and  leaving  the  clergy  nothing  to  hope 
for,  beyond  a  reasonable  competency,  and  nothing  to 
think  of,  but  their  proper  duties  ;  if  this  could  have 
been  done,  civihzation  and  Christianity  might  both 
have  been  saved. 

The  church  economy,  modelled  by  Constantino, 
and  his  immediate  successors,  in  the  next  place,  in- 
cluded certain  arrangements,  distributions,  and  con- 
centrations of  the  existing  ecclesiastical  supremacies, 
such  as  seemed  necessary,  or  at  least  desirable,  for 
bringing  the  newly  associated  and  powerful  religious 
body  into  analogy  with  the  civil  polity  of  the  empire. 
Some  authorities,  of  ancient  date,  were  confirmed  ; 
some  transferred ;  some  were  extended,  and  others 
made  subordinate,  until  the  one  vast  machine — the 
spiritual,  fitted  into  the  movements  of  the  other — the 
secular. 

These  new  arrangements,  whatever  they  might 
involve  in  their  details,  did  by  no  means  originate 
either  the  principle  or  the  practices  of  an  extensive 
church  polity,  and  of  a  broad  based  hierarchy.  They 
merely  induced  a  new  and  more  regular  form  upon 
that  great  economy  of  provincial  government,  and  of 
oecumenic  relationshipj  which  had  already  spread 
itself  over  the  Roman  world.  The  only  novelty  of 
principle^  on  this  occasion,  was  thivS,  that  such  ar- 
rangements should  be  effected  by  the  civil  author- 
ity. Whoever  is  so  minded  may  call  in  question 
the  abstract  lawfulness  of  this  interference  of  the 
magistrate.  But  here  again,  as  in  the  preceding 
instance,  while  we  waive  theoretic  and  interminable 
arguments^  we  are  content,  on  plain  and  practical 


IN  THE   FOURTH  CENTURY.  203 

grounds,  to  assume  the  probability  that  this  new 
modelling  of  the  external  Church,  and  the  bringing 
it  into  correspondence  with  the  civil  mechanism  of 
the  empire,  was  for  the  better,  rather  than  the  worse  ; 
and  that  its  tendency  was  to  check,  more  than  to 
promote,  the  excesses  of  clerical  ambition. 

Nor  can  we  stop  at  this  point ;  but  must  candidly 
profess  to  think,  that  the  error  of  the  imperial  regene- 
rator and  rector  of  the  Church,  if  any,  was,  not  his 
assuming  to  effect  a  more  regular  polity  than  that 
which  the  accidents  of  time  had  brouglit  about;  but 
that  it  wasj  on  the  contrary,  his  not  carrying  these 
arrangements  considerably  further  than  he  did:  and 
so  reducing  the  oscumenic  hierarchy  to  a  counter- 
poise, and  a  harmony,  such  as  should  have  preclu- 
ded the  then  fast  advancing  usurpations  of  the 
bishop  of  Rome.  Whether  Constantine's  power 
was  really  adequate  to  any  such  reform  is  doubtful, 
probably  it  was  not ;  for  already  the  opinion  that  fa- 
voured the  pretensions  of  St.  Peter's  successor  had 
gained  great  strength,  and  was  widely  diffused. 

It  was  not,  we  say,  less  of  the  establishment  prin- 
ciple, but  7?iore  of  it,  that  was  needed  when  first  the 
Church  came  under  the  wing  of  the  State.  Whether 
the  superstition  that  sustained  the  throne  of  the  Ro- 
mish hierarch  could  then  have  been  sifted  and  dis- 
pelled,  is  not  certain ;  but  there  is  little  room  to  doubt 
that  an  easy  appeal  to  natural  motives  in  the  minds 
of  the  Patriarchs  of  Antioch,  Alexandria,  and  Con- 
stantinople, and  the  bishops  of  northern  Africa,  would 
have  enabled  the  emperor  to  place  the  several  centres 
of  church  government  on  such  a  level,  and  to  bring 
their  correspondence  under  such  regulations,  as  must 
have  barred  the  ambitious  course  of  the  papacy. 

At  the  moment  of  Constantine's  conversion,  the 
relative  importance  of  the  eastern,  western,  and  Afri- 
can Churches,  was  such  as  well  admitted  of  a  re- 
dressing and  permanent  adjustment  of  their  respec- 


204  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

live  strength:  and  if  human  sagacity  could  have 
foieseeti  the  consequences  that  were  to  flow  from  the 
withdrawmetit  of  the  court,  and  of  the  imperial  vigi- 
lance from  Italy,  and  the  leaving  there  a  house, 
empty,  swept  and  garnished,  to  be  occupied  by  the 
demon  of  ghostly  despotism — tlie  most  vigorous 
measures  would  have  been  adopted  for  keeping  the 
Romish  prelate  in  due  subordination.  No  such  pre- 
cautions were  used  ;  and  Rome  a  second  time  made 
herself  mistress  of  Europe. 

The  modification  and  belter  adjustment  of  the 
ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  empire  was  not  etrected  by 
Constantine  without  some  due  regard  to  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  external  and  the  internal  concerns 
of  the  Church.  "  We  ourselves,"  says  his  biographer 
and  friend,  "  heard  the  emperor  use  such  expres- 
sions as  ihese,  one  day,  when  entertaining  an  epis- 
copal party  at  the  royal  table  ;  '  To  you  indeed  is 
comiviitted  by  God  the  oversight  of  whatever  belongs 
to  the  interior  of  the  Church  ;  and  to  me,  what  re- 
lates to  its  external  interests  : — by  God's  appoint- 
ment, 1  am  bishop  of  these  alTairs.' "  Constantine 
was  not  a  Tudor  or  a  Stuart ;  and  if  the  perversity 
of  some  with  whom  he  had  to  deal,  had  not  gradu- 
ally^ moved  him  from  his  position,  there  is  reason,  to 
think  b.e  would  have  restrained  his  interference  in 
religious  matters  within  very  reasonable  bounds. 

Even  apart  from  the  incidental  difficulties  that 
arose  in  the  course  of  his  administration,  it  was  not 
likely,  in  (hat  age,  that  the  due  line,  which  separates 
theological  and  purely  spiritual  affairs  from  the  secular 
or  political  interests  of  the  Church,  should  have  been 
well  understood  ;  or  if  understood,  consistently  re- 
garded :  in  fact,  it  very  soon  came  to  be  entirely 
overlooked  ;  and  w4jile  bishops  w^ere  allowed  still  to 
exercise  jurisdiction  of  a  civil  sort,  which,  now  that 
the  State  had  become  Christian,  should  have  been 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  105 

altogether  removed  from  their  hands,  the  emperor, 
on  his  part,  was  importuned  by  the  bishops  to  arbi- 
trate in  rehgious  controversies,  and  in  questions  of 
disciphne.  In  this  article  of  the  new  system,  there- 
fore, although  the  rule  avowed  by  Constantine  might 
be  valid,  the  practice  which  gained  ground  is  certainly 
not  to  be  imitated. 

We  say  the  rule  was  good ;  and  if  expressed 
more  at  large,  it  amounts  to  this — That,  while  re- 
hgion,  in  its  primary  and  more  momentous  import, 
regards  the  condition  of  souls,  individually,  in  their 
relation  to  God,  and  to  the  future  life,  it  is  also, 
though  in  a  secondary,  yet  not  an  unimportant  sense, 
an  interest  of  the  present  life,  and  a  main  element 
of  the  social  well-being  of  mankind.  In  its  first 
sense,  religion  comes  under  the  control  and  direction 
of  the  ministers  of  religion — the  clergy  ;  and  any 
intrusion  of  the  magistrate,  as  such,,  within  this 
sacred  circle,  or  any  endeavour  to  bring  the  senti- 
ments proper  to  it  under  the  constraint  of  law,  is  a 
usurpation  that  ought  to  be  resisted,  even  to  death. 
But  in  its  second  sense,  or  as  a  fulcrum  of  order,  and 
a  cement  of  public  peace,  and  as  a  rule  of  manners, 
and  a  sanction  of  civil  virtue,  religion  not  only  may^ 
but  must  be  cared  for,  and  be  uplield,  and  be  regu- 
lated by  the  State.  How  much  soever  the  magis- 
trate, in  any  instance,  may  desire  to  relieve  his 
hands  of  this  burden,  he  finds  he  cannot  do  so  with- 
out an  abandonment  of  his  duty.  What  is  not  sus- 
tained, will  decay ;  what  is  not  kept  in  order,  will 
fall  into  confusion. 

On  points  of  this  sort,  men  of  the  closet — those 
who  are  as  fond  of  theory,  as  they  are  inexperienced 
in  the  affairs  of  real  hfe,  and  who  hold  in  contempt 
any  dictates  of  prudence  which  they  do  not  know 
how  to  connect  with  abstract  principles,  will  never 
grant  us  their  acquiescence.  Meanwhile,  if  intrust- 
ed, directly  or  indirectly,  with  the  serious  interests  of 
18 


206.  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

a  community,  we  must  advance,  with  or  without  a 
theory,  on  the  safe  ground  of  common  sense.  The 
morals  of  a  nation  are  to  be  guarded  ;  sentiments  of 
awe  toward  the  Divine  Majesty  are  to  be  cherished  ; 
the  instruction  (and,  to  be  etiicacious,  it  must  be  a 
religious  instruction")  of  the  people,  far  from  being 
abandoned  to  the  efforts  of  precarious  zeal,  must  be 
secured  on  a  broad  foundation ;  and  more  than  this, 
those  extensive  interests  of  the  Church,  and  those 
modifications  and  adaptations,  made  necessary  by 
the  revolutions  of  time,  which  no  individuals,  pri- 
vately, are  in  a  position  to  superintend,  and  which, 
moreover,  the  Church  itself  is  often  tardy  in  attend- 
ing to,  demand  a  vigilant  regard  ;  and  must,  at  in- 
tervals, receive  a  vigorous  impulse  from  the  magis- 
trate or  the  legislature. 

Certain  modern  refinements  of  opinion,  which 
would  restrain  a  prince,  or  a  legislature,  from  taking 
thought  of  the  most  important  of  all  the  earthly  in- 
terests of  a  people  (we  say  earthly,  for  we  here  ex- 
clude what  is  strictly  spiritual)  never,  we  may  be 
sure,  occurred  to  the  mind  of  Constantine ;  and  we 
find  him,  without  scruple,  legislating  and  issuing 
edicts  in  conformity  with  those  higher  and  purer 
principles  of  morality  which  he  had  learned  from  the 
Gospel.  The  expediency,  or  even  the  justice  of  cer- 
tain of  his  measures  may  be  questioned,  or  may  be 
denied  ;  and  especially  we  must  condemn  his  intru- 
sions, though  they  were  not  frequent,  upon  purely 
theological  ground.  We  must  also,  and  without  a 
doubt,  reprobate  those  few  acts — they  were  but  few, 
in  which,  at  the  instigation  of  the  clergy,  he  used 
severities  against  schismatics.  But  it  is  an  error  to 
suppose,  as  some  appear  to  do,  that  Constantine's 
personal  temper  and  conduct,  toward  the  Church, 
were  dogmatical  and  cruel ;  or  that  the  leading  prin- 
ciple of  his  polity  was  intolerant. 


IN   THE  FOURTH    CENTURY.  207 

A  careful  consideration  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
times,  and  a  knowledge  of  facts,  are  requisite,  before 
a  sweeping  censure  should  be  passed  upon  the  course 
pursued  by  the  first  Christian  emperors  toward  their 
pagan  subjects.  This  course  was  indeed  far  from 
being  always  consistent  with  the  principle  whence 
professedly  it  sprung  ;  nor  was  the  principle  itself 
altogether  such  as  our  modern  notions  of  religious 
liberty  will  approve.  The  principle  avowed  was,  that 
the  worship  of  false  gods,  and  all  customs  therewith 
connected,  were  to  be,  by  all  means — not  excluding 
the  most  extreme,  suppressed,  as  immoral  and  impi- 
ous. But  while  severities  were  resorted  to  in  some 
instances,  a  connivance  was  admitted  in  others,  which 
brought  into  suspicion  the  imperial  sincerity,  and 
operated  to  protract  the  adherence  of  the  upper  classes 
to  the  ancient  idolatries. 

Polytheism  has  never  been  otherwise  than  grossly 
impure,  and  horribly  cruel  in  its  practices.  Both 
these  characteristics  belonged  to  it  in  a  high  degree, 
such  as  it  had  come  down  to  the  age  of  the  Christian 
emperors.  The  Egyptian  rites,  perpetrated  constant- 
ly, and  in  open  day,  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  were 
insufferably  obscene :  so,  though  in  a  less  offensive 
degree,  were  many  of  the  usages  of  the  Grecian  and 
Roman  worship.  Horrid  and  sanguinary  rites  pre- 
vailed among  the  less  civilized  and  outskirt  nations 
of  the  empire ;  and  indeed,  without  looking  so  far, 
the  bloody  shows  of  the  amphitheatre,  although  not 
strictly  a  part  of  the  old  religion,  had  become  firmly 
connected  with  it,  and  had  come  under  its  patronage, 
and  their  enormity  was  boundless  and  shameless. — 
These  various  abominations  could  not  consist  with 
the  public  profession,  or  with  the  maintenance  and 
spread  of  Christianity,  Christianity  might  indeed 
endure  them  while  she  was  herself  depressed  and 
bleeding  ;  but  she  could  no  longer  bear  the  offence, 


208  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM 


when  calmly  seated  at  the  right  hand  of  the  secular 
power. 

To  talk  of  the  rights  of  conscience,  in  relation  to 
cruelties  and  obscenities — called  religious,  is  a  ridi- 
culous affectation.  Those  who  choose  so  to  amuse 
themselves,  may  deny  the  right  of  the  magistrate  to 
interfere  in  any  case  with  the  worship  and  belief  of  a 
people  ;  but  assuredly  a  sound-minded  prince  will  not 
hesitate  a  moment,  when  once  he  finds  himself  able 
to  prohibit  pious  murders,  and  pious  prostitutions  ;  or 
to  suppress  any  system  of  oppression  and  knavery, 
which  may  take  the  mask  of  devotion.  Thus  felt 
Constantine,  and  his  successors ;  and  they  actually 
effected  the  removal  and  extinction,  throughout  the 
empire,  of  many  of  the  worst  practices  of  heathen-' 
ism  : — the  reform  was  great  and  important. 

But  it  would  be  unfair  to  expect  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  those  religious  practices  which  are  in- 
compatible with  the  maintenance  of  pubhc  morals,  or 
with  the  security  of  life,  and  what  is  strictly  matter 
of  opinion  and  religious  sentiment,  should,  in  that 
age,  have  been  understood  and  respected,  either  by 
emperors  or  by  their  clerical  advisers.  In  truth,  it  is 
found,  even  now,  an  affair  of  considerable  practical 
difficulty  to  draw  the  line  safely  when  we  have  to  do 
with  the  usages  of  a  corrupt  superstition.  If  the  ad- 
ministration of  our  Indian  possessions  presents  many 
perplexing  instances  of  the  collision  of  theoretic  prin- 
ciples with  the  maxims  of  government,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  the  first  Christian  princes  often  erred,  as  well  in 
principle  as  in  their  measures,  when  called  upon  to 
deal — inexperienced  as  they  were,  with  the  abomi- 
nations of  polytheism.  To  have  given  no  check  to 
the  sanguinary  rites  practised  under  their  eye,  and 
to  have  connived  at  the  pollutions  of  the  Phoenician 
and  Egyptian  temples  (not  to  mention  others  little 
less  atrocious)  would  infallibly  have  brought  their 
sincerity  into  question,  in  the  view,  as  well  of  their 


IN  THE  FOURTH   CENTURY.  209 

pagan,  as  of  their  Christian  subjects  ;  and  must  have 
rendered  nugatory  all  their  endeavours  for  the  fur- 
therance of  the  Gospel. 

And  yet,  in  taking  the  only  course  which  they 
could  think  open  to  them— namely,  that  of  authori- 
tatively proscribing  the  grosser  and  the  more  cruel 
usages  of  Paganism,  and  in  actually  employing  the 
public  force  for  the  extermination  of  these  evils,  the 
emperors  advanced  upon  ground,  and  brought  the 
Church  with  them  upon  the  ground,  where  nothing 
could  happen  but  that  both  should  learn  the  bad 
lessons  of  religious  intolerance.  The  sword,  drawn 
against  polytheism,  would,  in  the  next  moment,  be 
turned  upon  heretics  and  schismatics.  Considering 
the  spirit  and  notions  of  the  age,  we  ought  to  wonder 
rather  that  this  was  done  so  seldom,  than  that  it  was 
done  at  all.  In  truth,  Constantino  exhibited  an  ex- 
treme reluctance  to  the  use  of  compulsory  measures, 
and  ordinarily  stopped  short  in  breaking  up  the  con- 
venticles of  those  who  separated  themselves  from  the 
Church.  Nevertheless  the  fatal  precedent  of  Chris- 
tian PERSECUTION  was  formally  given,  and  sanc- 
tioned ;  and  the  Church,  through  a  long  course  of 
ages,  went  on  to  wade,  without  remorse,  in  a  path 
sodden  with  Christian  tears  and  Christian  blood. — 
We  should  commiserate,  as  much  as  condemn,  those 
whose  unfortunate  position,  in  a  manner,  compelled 
them  to  take  steps  upon  a  slippery  descent,  where  the 
human  foot  could  hardly  secure  a  standing. 

One  other  article  of  Constantino's  ecclesiastical 
polity  (already  adverted  to  in  passing)  remains  to  be 
more  distinctly  spoken  of;  and  here  again,  w^hat  we 
have  to  blame,  is  not  the  carrying  the  church  and 
state  system,  and  the  establishment  principle,  too  far ; 
but  tlie  not  carrying  them  far  enough.  The  Church, 
or  we  should  now  say,  the  episcopal  chiefs,  had  not 
only  accumulated  great  wealth,  but  had  drawn  to 
18* 


210  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM; 

themselves  very  extensive  judicial  powers,  stretched^ 
by  various  pretexts,  from  a  narrow  circle,  until  ques- 
tions and  controversies  of  almost  every  sort  were 
brought  witiiin  their  sphere.  The  bishops'  daily  em- 
ployments, in  the  larger  sees,  were  more  secular  than 
spiritual ;  and  he  was  seen  oftener,  and  listened  to 
more  eagerly,  on  the  bench,  dividing  inheritances, 
than  in  the  pulpit,  teaching  piety. 

This  enormous  evil — whence  sprung  the  worst 
usurpations,  and  whicli  furnished  occasions  to  clerical 
rapacit)^,  and  was  the  principal  means  of  throwing 
into  the  hands  of  the  Church  a  power  that  enabled 
her,  in  the  end,  to  vanquish  and  trample  upon  the 
civil  authority — this  great  mischief  should  doubtless 
have  been  altogether  removed.  The  original  plea 
on  which,  by  the  apostolic  sanction,  secular  differ- 
ences among  the  faithful  were  to  be  referred  to  an  ar- 
bitration within  the  Church,  namely,  the  shame  to 
the  Gospel  implied  in  exposing  the  discords  of  Christ- 
ians before  the  unbelieving  world,  was  nullified  when 
the  bishop's  hall  had  become  as  public  a  place  as  the 
courts  of  civil  law:  and  when  the  principles  of  Christ- 
ian equity  were  respected  in  the  one  judicature  as 
much  as  in  the  other ;  and  when,  moreover,  the  cus- 
tom of  appeal  to  ecclesiastical  authority  had  reached 
an  extent  absolutely  incompatible  with  the  discharge 
of  the  spiritual  functions  of  the  bishops. 

With  the  highest  advantage  to  all  parties,  this  ill 
practice  might  have  been  brought  to  a  close.  There 
could  be  no  consistenc}^,  and  little  validity,  in  the  pro 
ceedings  of  civil  courts,  while  such  an  intermingling 
of  jurisdictions  continued  :  it  was  at  once  a  rottenness 
in  the  State,  and  an  ulcer  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church. 
But  how  apply  the  remedy  ?  Notwithstanding  the 
adulation  addressed  to  the  emperors  by  tonsured  and 
mitred  sycophants,  there  is  little  reason  to  think  they 
ever  jiossessed  power  enough  over  their  ambiguous 
spiritual  consort  to  effect  a  reform  of  this  kind.     The 


IN   THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  211 

Church,  demure  in  mien,  and  abject  in  tongue,  knew 
very  well  what  was  substantial  in  the  prerogatives 
she  had  acquired  during  her  days  of  depression  ;  nor 
wag  she  at  all  likely  to  surrender,  in  the  summer 
time  of  favour  and  prosperity,  what  she  had  won  in 
the  winter  of  her  sorrow. 

Even  the  people,  perhaps,  might  have  come  for- 
ward to  sustain  their  clergy  in  resisting  the  abolition 
of  the  episcopal  jurisdiction.  A  propensity  to  resort 
to  vague,  rather  than  to  well-defined  means  of  secu- 
ring doubtful  interests,  belongs  to  human  nature,  and 
especially  among  the  uninformed  classes.  There 
were  hopes  and  chances,  attaching  to  the  bishops'  de- 
cision, which  would  not  seem  compensated  by  the 
stern  and  well-regulated  justice  of  civil  courts.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  dangerous  and  corrupting  influence, 
over  common  interests,  over  persons,  and  property, 
long  before  obtained  by  the  ministers  of  Christian- 
ity, instead  of  being  superseded,  was  confirmed  by 
the  emperors.  Here  then  we  find  one  of  the  chief 
engines  of  spiritual  despotism — an  engine  constructed 
and  brought  into  play  during  the  pristine  era  of  the 
Church,  left  in  operation,  because  the  Church  had 
already  become  too  strong  for  the  State.  If  the  civil 
authority  had  been  able  to  effect  an  establishment,  in 
the  modern  sense  of  the  term,  and  with  a  firm  hand 
had  put  the  Church  in  her  place,  and  had  assumed  to 
itself  its  proper  functions  and  prerogatives,  the  former 
would  have  found  her  path  of  encroachment  barred  : 
— she  must  henceforth  have  minded  her  duties. 

Til  was  this  fatal  dereliction  of  its  rights  and  func- 
tions, on  the  part  of  the  civil  power,  compensated  by 
the  prerogative  wliich  the  emperors  reserved  to  them- 
selves of  convening  oecumenic  councils,  or  by  the 
right  of  investiture.  The  one  was  a  power,  the  exer- 
cise of  which  might  be  of  doubtful  expediency,  and  of 
small  practical  value ;  the  latter  was  a  usurpation, 
not  to  be  justified  on  abstract  principles,  and  produc- 


212  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

live,  in  most  instances,  of  fruitless  and  perilous  con- 
tentions between  princes  and  prelates.  This  same 
want  of  a  clear  and  peremptory  demarcation  between 
the  spiritual  and  the  temporal  elements  of  power,  and 
this  mutual  intrusion  of  the  two  authorities  upon 
each  other's  duties,  was  the  leading  fault  of  those  ar- 
rangements that  followed  the  public  recognition  of 
Christianity.  Had  such  a  partition  been  effected  by 
Constantine,  the  result  must  have  been  the  cashier- 
ing the  clergy  of  extensive  powers  and  opportunities 
of  aggrandizement,  which  they  had  secured  to  them- 
selves under  the  voluntary  system,  and  by  the  means 
of  it. 

But  the  auspicious  season  for  bringing  about  a 
well-defined  national  establishment,  and  for  hemming 
in  spiritual  ambition,  was  lost  (that  is  to  say,  lost^  if 
Constantine  actually  had  the  power  to  curb  the 
Church,  as  well  as  to  favour  it.)  The  sinews  of  the 
hierarchical  tyranny  were  left  to  it ;  and  while  it 
gained  flesh  and  blood  and  beauty — corpulence  and 
complexion,  from  the  nutriment  of  state  patronage,  it 
did  not,  in  any  degree,  lose  its  internal  vigour,  or  be- 
come less  enterprising,  or  less  bold  and  assiduous, 
with  its  increase  of  bulk  and  marrow.  At  the  era  of 
Constantine's  conversion,  Esther  bowed  and  fainted 
in  the  presence  of  Ahasuerus  ;  but  i\.hasuerus  forgot 
his  discretion  as  a  prince  ;  and  though  he  kept  his 
throne,  and  spoke  as  lord  and  sovereign,  he  allowed 
the  fair  suppliant,  in  the  end,  to  make  her  own  terms, 
and  to  secure  her  future  ascendancy. 

The  several  articles  of  Constantine's  religious 
polity,  to  which  we  have  adverted,  are  chiefly  of  an 
exterior  and  visible  sort  ;  and  in  these  it  is  manifest 
that,  whatever  might  be  the  submissive  style  of  ec- 
clesiastical leaders,  and  how  magisterial  soever  might 
be  the  tones  of  this  imperial  Rector  of  the  Church, 
every  substantial  advantage  was  left  in  her  hands, 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  213 

and  the  civil  authority,  far  from  havirig  brought  the 
spiritual  power  into  subserviency  to  itself,  or  even 
into  a  position  of  permanent  equipoise,  in  the  man- 
ner which  we  think  of  as  proper  to  a  national  es- 
tablishment, confirmed  and  secured  to  it  the  en- 
croachments it  had  already  made.  All  that  had  got 
wrong  in  the  working  of  the  voluntary  machine  du- 
ring the  preceding  two  centuries,  was  set  forward  with 
a  new  impetus,  instead  of  being  redressed  by  vigor- 
ous enactments ; — enactments  such  as  would  have 
amounted  to  wliat  we  intend  and  desire  in  an  Es- 
tablished Church. 

The  progress  of  Church  Power,  in  regard  to  its 
external  conditions,  and  especially  as  concentrating 
around  the  see  of  Rome,  has  been  fully  exhibited  by 
several  eminent  modern  writers,  and  is  a  subject 
famiUar  to  English  ears.  To  go  over  this  ground 
anew,  would  be  here  superfluous ;  and  besides,  in  the 
present  volume,  we  keep  our  eye  rather  upon  the 
substance  and  occult  principle  of  Spiritual  Despotism, 
than  upon  what  may  be  called  its  political  steps  or 
those  circumstances  and  revolutions  of  which  the 
historian  takes  account. 

We  have  then  yet  to  make  inquiry  concerning 
the  not-obtruded  spirit  and  feeling  of  the  Church 
(that  is  to  say,  of  its  chiefs)  in  the  era  now  under 
review,  and  while  the  open  subjugation  of  the  secu- 
lar authority  was  only  in  preparation  i  during  this 
ambiguous  period,  she  visibly  bowed  before  the  im- 
perial throne,  but  really  was  mistress  of  affairs, 
and  seems  to  have  conceived  the  idea  of  grasping 
every  sort  of  authority. 

One  cannot  peruse  the  orations  and  epistles  of  the 
time  without  perceiving  that  the  clergy  distinctly  felt 
their  strength,  that  strength  which  they  drew  from 
their  intimate  influence  with  a  large  class  of  the 
people.     No  longer  in  dread  of  the  open   hostility 


214  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM, 

which  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  forbade  them  to 
oppose,  they  threw  themselves  upon  the  vast  and 
undefined  means  of  their  power,  and  spoke  in  a  tone 
such  as  the  court  could  not  fail  to  understand.  The 
force  of  Christianity  over  the  popular  mind  (when 
actually  affected  by  it)  is  indeed  incalculable  ;  and 
this  force  had  been  rather  enhanced  than  diminished 
by  the  spread  of  superstition.  Then  the  usage  of 
preaching,  unknown  to  paganism,  had  brought  the 
mass  of  society  under  an  influence  analogous  to  that 
which  the  orators  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  had 
exercised.  This  influence,  moreover,  was,  if  we 
might  use  such  a  simile,  pulverized,  and  applied  in 
the  most  pungent  and  caustic  form  to  the  entire  sen- 
sitive surface  of  the  Christian  community,  by  the 
practices  of  catechetical  instruction,  and  of  private 
confession,  and  by  that  individual  cure  of  souls  to 
which  the  clergy  assiduously  addicted  themselves. 

The  dark  cloud  that  passed  over  the  Church  du- 
ring the  short  inimical  reign  of  Julian,  served  to 
bring  to  view  the  real  temper  of  the  leading  men  of 
the  times. — So,  amid  the  dazzUng  beams  of  a  noon- 
day sun,  we  do  not  distinguish  the  fires  that  have 
been  kept  alive  in  a  camp  covering  a  distant  plain  ; 
but  if  the  heavens  become  suddenly  overcast  with 
stormy  volumes  of  vapour,  we  then  instantly  per- 
ceive the  smouldering  heaps,  here  and  there,  which 
glow  and  brighten,  and  which  the  huffing  gusts  of 
the  coming  tempest  soon  fan  into  a  flame. 

The  orations  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  and  two  of 
the  epistles  of  Basil,  not  to  look  further^  afford  indi- 
cations enough  of  the  feeling,  or  of  the  preparation 
of  feeling,  working  in  episcopal  bosoms,  when  the 
christian  body  found  itself  again  threatened  with 
hostility.  A  very  great,  and  we  may  say,  a  very 
improbable  revolution  in  principles  and  maxims 
must  have  taken  place  before  Christians  could  have 
thought  of  opposing  force  to  force  ;  and  happily,  the 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  216 

fall  of  their  adversary  very  early  broke  up  any  me- 
ditations (if  actually  revolved)  of  an  unbecoming 
sort.  But  this  unexpected  check  served  to  exhibit 
a  consciousness  of  power  in  the  Church,  and  deep- 
ened it  too.  Accustomed  as  we  are,  in  modern  timesj 
and  notwithstanding  the  spirit  of  freedom  that  is 
abroad,  to  respect  the  courtesies  due  to  royalty  de- 
funct, our  ears  are  startled  by  the  harsh  and  rancor- 
ous invectives  heaped  upon  the  name  of  the  apos- 
tate, by  the  Churchmen  of  the  day.  It  might  have 
been  supposed  that,  though  the  family  of  Constan- 
tino had  now  no  surviving  avenger,  the  wearers  of 
the  purple  would  have  resented  these  insults  to  the 
dead,  as  touching  their  own  dignity. 

The  changing  circumstances  of  the  Arian  con- 
troversy, in  its  course  through  the  fourth  century, 
elicited  many  portentous  expressions  of  church  feel- 
ing, we  do  not  say  of  church  arrogance,  in  relation 
to  the  imperial  authority.  Hilary  of  Poictiers,  Mar- 
tin of  Tours,  and  Ambrose  of  Milan,  as  appears 
from  their  writings,  or  from  their  reported  speeches 
and  conduct,  knew  themselves  to  stand  in  a  posi- 
sition  such  as  allowed  them  to  measure  forces  with 
the  State. 

But  the  spiritual  energy  of  the  spiritual  despotism 
of  this  period,  was  shown  when  at  length  occasions 
arose  calHng  for  the  application  of  the  wonted  disci- 
pline of  the  Church  to  imperial  delinquents.  Now, 
when  these  instances  meet  us,  we  should  by  no 
means  hastily  blame  the  bold  impartiality  of  the 
bishops  who  dared  to  reprove  sin  upon  the  throne  ; 
on  the  contrary,  their  intrepidity,  and  especially  if 
we  could  think  it  simple  minded,  claims  admiration. 
Yet  it  is  highly  improbable  that  these  punitive 
measures  would  either  have  been  attempted  on  the 
one  side,  or  submitted  to  on  the  other,  unless  church 
rulers  had  well  understood  the  breadth  and  firmness 


216  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISMj 

of  the  ground  they  then  occupied,  and  unless  princes 
had  understood  it  too. 

The  well  known  conduct  of  Ambrose  toward 
Theodosius,  which  indeed  fell  little  short  of  that  of 
the  popes  of  the  twelfth  century  toward  the  princes 
of  their  time,  puts  beyond  reasonable  doubt  the  asser- 
tion that,  though  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities were  then  in  a  relative  position,  such  as 
apparently  left  the  supremacy  with  the  former,  pub- 
lic opinion  had  reached  a  point  which  allowed  the 
latter  to  say  and  do  almost  whatever  its  own  discre- 
tion might  admit.  It  is  well,  in  any  age,  when  the 
high  pi  inciples  of  christian  morality  are  so  regarded, 
and  have  such  force,  that  the  mightiest  monarchs 
feel  themselves  compelled  to  yield  obedience  to  church 
censures.  But  this  can  happen  only  under  two 
conditions ;  'that  is  to  say,  either  when  genuine 
Christian  virtue  so  governs  the  sentiments  of  the 
mass  of  mankind,  as  that  discipline  takes  effect,  as  it 
were,  spontaneously  ;  or  else,  when  clerical  arro- 
gance has  reached  a  height  that  enables  it  to  indulge 
in  the  gratification  of  smiting  a  crowned  and  anoint- 
ed head.  Now  we  cannot  contemplate  the  moral 
condition  of  the  Roman  world  in  the  age  of  Ambrose, 
and  believe  that  Theodosius  bowed  to  the  majesty  of 
public  virtue.  What  he  actually  bowed  to  was,  the 
terrors  and  the  pride  of  spiritual  despotism. 

This  single  instance,  looked  at  by  itself,  or  as  a 
scene  in  a  drama,  compels  our  admiration,  and  we 
can  do  nothing  but  applaud  the  holy  intrepidity  of 
the  minister  of  heaven.  Had  the  same  courage 
always,  as  in  this  case,  been  exerted  on  the  side  of 
humanity,  no  reputation  would  have  stood  higher 
than  that  of  Ambrose.  That  he  himself  sincerely 
regarded  those  great  principles  of  religion  and  virtue, 
to  which  he  compelled  his  sovereign  to  do  homage, 
cannot  fairly  be  doubted.  But  there  were  other 
principles,  and  there  was  another  object,  inseparably 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  217 

connected  in  his  mind  with  purer  motiveSj  and  which 
swayed  his  conduct  with  at  least  aa  equal  force. 
These  principles  involved  the  transcendency  of  church 
power ;  and  this  fond  object  Was  the  very  same, 
afterwards  so  boldly  pursued,  and  at  length  achieved, 
by  the  papal  court,  namely,  the  absolute  subjugation 
of  the  secular,  (o  the  spiritual  power.  It  is  quite  im- 
possible to  doubt  the  identity  of  purpose  and  of  prin- 
ciple, when  the  language  used  by  the  chiefs  of  the 
hierarchy  is  traced  backward,  shall  we  say,  from  the 
Decretals  of  Gregory  IX.  and  thence  to  the  epistles  of 
Innocent  III.  and  thence  to  those  of  Gregory  VII.  ; 
and  again  to  the  writings  of  Gregory  the  Great,  and 
of  Si.  Leo,  and  of  Ambrose?  Nay.  our  retrogres- 
sive inquiry  should  not  stop  there ;  for  the  very  same 
style  and  terms  meet  us,  scarcely  disguised,  in  the 
pages  of  Cyprian. 

During  this  long  course  of  time,  though  at  a  first 
glance  we  may  think  we  see  the  Church,  not  merely 
patronized  and  favoured,  but  governed  by  the  State, 
a  very  little  attention  to  facts,  and  to  the  half-utter- 
ed sentiments  of  ecclesiastics,  is  enough  to  convince 
us  that  the  real  relative  position  of  the  two  powers 
was  the  reverse  of  what  it  appeared.  On  the  one 
side  there  Vv^as  a  growing  consciousness  of  indepen- 
dent authority,  and  on  the  other  a  feeling  of  virtual 
subjection,  poorly  compensated  by  ilie  forms  of  im- 
perial rule,  or  by  single  exertions  of  power.  The 
church- and-state  system  (if  s»<^h  it  can  be  called) 
from  the  time  of  Theodosiuc,  and  onward,  was,  in  its 
essence,  whether  or  not  m  its  form,  the  opposite  of 
onr  modern  national  establishments:  and  if  we  can 
only  imagine,  what  in  truth  seems  unlikely,  that  an 
entire  community — its  upper  and  its  lower  classes, 
should  come  as  fully  under  the  power  of  arbitrary 
relio-ious  motives,  as  did  the  mass  of  the  Christian 
community  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  a  non- 
established  bishop  (or  presbyter)  of  an  English  or 
19 


218  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

American  city,  might  copy  the  pattern  of  an  Am- 
brose or  an  Urban,  and  chastise  and  humiliate  kings 
and  emperors.  What  renders  the  recurrence  of  any 
such  acts  of  clerical  arrogance  improbable,  is  not  the 
present  feeble  condition  of  ecclesiastical  establish- 
ments, but  the  decay  and  dispersion  of  those  deep 
feelings  on  which  superstition  founds  its  power. 

Before  we  lose  sight  of  the  archbishop  of  Milan, 
it  may  be  proper  to  advert  to  circumstances  which, 
though  they  scarcely  attract  notice  on  the  page  of 
history,  are  yet  significant  as  showing  the  tendency 
of  church  affairs.  Again  and  again  it  happened, 
when  Theodosius  visited  his  spiritual  lord,  coming 
fresii  from  the  oriental  pomps  of  his  Constantino- 
politan  court,  and  being  surrounded  by  obsequious 
Greeks,  that  he  had  to  be  schooled  anew  in  the  hard 
lesson  of  the  nothingness  of  earthly  distinctions,  and 
the  subserviency  of  the  temporal  to  the  spiritual 
authority.  At  home,  when  attending  the  celebration 
of  the  "sacred  mysteries,"  courtesy  assigned  to  the 
emperor  an  elevated  place,  near  the  altar  :  but  not 
so  at  Milan  ;  for  Ambrose  could  grant  no  precedency 
to  a  mere  layman,  such  as  might  seem  to  put  him 
upon  an  equality  with  the  sacerdotal  order.  What 
was  the  lustre  of  the  purple  when  looked  at  in  the 
light  of  consecrated  candles  !  "  My  son,  stand 
among  the  people,  without  the  rail."  "  When,"  re- 
plied the  childlike  master  of  the  world,  ''  when  shall 
I  learn  that  an  emperor  is  not  a  priest  ?"  Theo- 
dosius in  Italy  had  to  lovg^et  the  Tiieodosius  of  the 
eastern  empire.  The  behaviour  of  Martin  of  Tours 
to  Maximus  is  quite  in  accordance  with  that  of  Am- 
brose. The  Western  Church  had^  at  a  very  early 
time  after  the  conversion  of  Constanikie,  and  the  re- 
moval of  the  Court  to  Byzantium,  gained  so  far 
upon  the  secular  power,  as  to  be  in  fact,  if  not  in 
form,  on  the  ascendant  side.  The  two  forces,  it  may 
be  said,  were  still  in  equipoise,   because  a  nominal 


IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY.  219 

supremacy  was  accorded  to  the  emperors;  but  the 
leading  prelates  of  the  Latin  Church,  from  the  first, 
breathed  the  soul  of  unborn  popes. 

The  preparations  for  the  papacy — that  is  to  say, 
the  church  ascendency  of  Italy  and  of  Rome,  its 
centre,  had  already  been  carried  very  far,  and  almost 
every  changing  fortune,  as  well  of  the  eastern  as  of 
the  western  empire,  opened  the  path  to  its  usurpa- 
tions. So,  when  the  waters  of  a  flood  are  rising, 
whether  the  swelling  torrents  are  opposed  and  made 
angry  by  firm  embankments,  or  ingress  is  given  to 
them  by  the  fall  of  barrier  after  barrier,  still  the  issue 
is  the  same  ; — the  tide  rises,  inch  by  inch  ;  hill  after 
hill  disappears,  and  at  length  nothing  but  here  and 
there  some  signal  of  ruin  breaks  the  waves  of  the 
universal  deluge. 

But  turning  aside  from  the  gradual  advance  of  the 
PAPACY,  and  bestowing  our  attention  rather  upon  the 
real  springs  of  that  spiritual  despotism  which  the  pa- 
pacy inherited  and  employed,  we  find,  during  the 
fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  centuries,  the  rules  and  prac- 
tices of  church  discipline  reaching  a  state  which  left 
almost  every  sort  of  encroachment  upon  the  secular 
authorit}^  open  to  the  discretion  of  ecclesiastics.  The 
engine  of  this  discipline  was  plied,  or  was  stayed,  in 
particular  instances,  in  accordance  with  the  policy  of 
the  moment,  or  the  temper  and  courage  of  pontiffs 
and  their  agents.  It  was  a  power — now  held  in  abey- 
ance— now  produced  and  moderately  worked,  to  in- 
spire a  necessary  fear ;  and  now  brought  to  bear 
with  all  its  terrors  upon  some  unfriended  delinquent. 

The  assumed  grounds,  and  the  chief  points  of  this 
church  disciphne,  will  claim  to  be  briefly  considered 
in  the  next  Section.  They  were  indeed  all  devised 
and  produced,  and  more  or  less  put  in  force,  during 
that  preliminary  era  which  has  now  been  under  re- 
view ;  but  they  will  be  examined  to  best  advantage, 
such  as  we  find  them  professed  without  reserve,  and 


220  SP  HUTU  AT.  DESPOTISM, 

acted  upon  witliout  scruple,  from  ihe  pontificate  of 
Gregory  the  Great,  down  to  the  time  of  the  Luther- 
an Reformation. 

In  the  east,  the  Church,  at  once  patronized  and 
repressed  by  the  immediate  presence  of  imperial 
power,  retained,  to  the  last,  its  seivihty,  and  existed 
only  as  a  pomp  of  tiie  court.  But  in  the  west,  sacer- 
uotal  ambition  took  a  free  course  ;  the  difference  of 
jiational  temperament  favouring  those  accidental  cir- 
cumstances of  the  empire  which  gave  it  room.  Dur- 
ing the  later  years  of  (his  era  of  counterpoise,  it  is 
manifest,  as  well  in  relation  to  the  east  as  the  west, 
tliough  far  more  decisively  with  the  latter,  that  the 
occult  motive  of  concession  to  secular  authority,  on 
the  part  of  the  Church,  was  the  need  it  still  felt  of 
the  imperial  arm  for  the  suppression  of  heresy  and 
schism.  "  Lend  us  your  sword  when  we  want  it,  and 
we  will  call  you  inaster."  This  was  the  language 
of  patriarchs  and  popes,  and  this  the  reason  of  moder- 
ation and  obedience  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  a  nominal  supremacy  on  the  other.  A 
relative  bearing  not  very  unlike  to  this,  and  which 
we  must  hereafter  more  distinctly  advert  to,  subsisted 
betv/een  Church  and  State  in  England  from  the  re- 
formation to  the  revolution.  Except  for  giving  effect 
to  its  sentences  of  banishment,  confiscation,  and  death, 
the  Church  wanted  nothing  which  the  Siaie  had  to 
bestow.  Already  it  had  established  its  irresponsible 
domination  oyer  the  minds  of  mankind — it  ruled 
their  hopes — it  ruled  their  fears — it  grasped  their  per- 
sons, their  wealth,  their  soub  ;  it  claimed  earth,  it 
disposed  of  heaven  :  none  could  speak  or  breathe,  on 
this  mortal  scene,  without  its  leave  ;  none  go  out  of 
it  safely,  without  its  passport.  The  magistrate  yet 
held  the  sword — the  public  force  was  under  his  con- 
trol, and  for  this  sole  reason,  the  Church  did  hin^ 
homage. 


IN  THE  FOVRTH  CENTURY.  221 

Tiie  era  of  the  counterpoise  of  the  secular  and 
spiritual  powers  was  not  the  period  of  a  church-and- 
slate  aUiance,  in  the  modern,  or  in  any  proper  sense 
of  the  phrase;  but  of  an  ambiguous  and  changing 
contest  between  two  independent  forcei,  never  really- 
adjusted,  never  in  harmony  ;  a  contest  marked  by 
the  slow  but  sure  advances  of  the  insidious  party, 
and  terminated  by  a  prouder  and  more  unhmited 
triumph  than  itself  had  imagined.  The  moment  of 
the  consummation  of  this  victory  we  shall  not  attempt 
to  fix. 

19* 


^221  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 


SECTION   VII. 


THE  CHURCH  ASCENDANT. 


It  might  tend,  not  a  little,  to  dispel  some  delusive 
impressions,  common  to  the  piotestant  world,  if  a 
phrase  could  be  found  which,  while  characteristic  of 
the  superstitious  and  despotic  system  that,  from  the 
second  and  third  centuries  supervened,  and  displaced 
Christianity,  should  cleady  separate  it  from  its  acci- 
dental connexion  with  the  papacy,  and  the  Romish 
hierarchical  tyranny.  The  popes  occupied,  and 
turned  to  their  particular  advantage,  this  vast  and  re- 
fined system  of  error  and  oppression  ;  but  the  system 
itself  has  deeper  roots,  is  more  recondite,  more  intel- 
lectual, and  is  more  ancient  than  the  usurpation  of 
the  bishops  of  Rome.  Nor  is  this  all ;  for  the  spiritual 
essence  of  popery  has  outlived  the  overthrow  of  the 
papal  domination,  or  the  proper  power  of  Rome  ;  and 
(which  is  a  significant  truth)  it  may  survive  the  total 
dispersion  and  final  dissolution  of  that  hierarchy  of 
which  the  pope  is  head  and  organ. 

There  is,  then,  some  substantial  and  practical  im- 
portance in  an  inquiry  concerning  those  theoretic 
axioms  to  which  the  Papacy  gave  visible  and  audible 
expression.  What  were  the  grasping  principles  that 
imparted  strength  and  vitality  to  popery,  and  which, 
without  supposing  any  thing  chimerical,  may  start 
forth  afresh,  and  rule  the  world  again,  when  popery 
shall  be  found  no  where  but  on  the  page  of  history  ? 

Instead  then  of  occupying  our  present  narrow  space, 
us  might  easily  be  done,  with  graphic  descriptions  of 


THE  CHURCH   ASCENDANT.  223 

that  state  of  society,  and  of  that  order  of  character, 
which  the  despotism  of  Rome,  while  at  its  height,  en. 
gendered  ;  and  instead  of  adducing  striking  instances 
of  the  cruelties  and  the  abominations  that  attended 
its  prevalence  ;  and  instead  of  attempting  an  histori- 
cal synopsis  of  the  steps  of  its  advance  and  decline  ; 
and  instead  of  giving  the  reins  to  our  emotions  of  in^ 
dignation  and  abhorrence  in  the  view  of  its  tyranny, 
perfidy,  and  corruption,  we  shall  endeavour  calmly, 
and  as  concisely  as  possible,  to  set  forth,  in  its  several 
leading  articles,  the  theory  of  spiritual  despotism, 
6uch  as  it  may  be  gathered  from  the  church  writers 
of  the  times  when  it  had  reached  its  full  proportions. 

Some  passing  hints  excepted,  the  author  does  not 
here  assume  the  task  of  refuting  the  principles  he  has 
to  exhibit.  In  truth,  the  most  convincing  refutation 
of  them  we  have  always  at  hand,  in  the  horrors  and 
the  religious  debauchery  to  which  they  gave  support. 

Let  it  be  kept  in  mind,  that,  when  speaking  of 
church  despotism,  as  in  the  plenitude  of  its  power, 
we  are  thinking  of  the  three  or  four  centuries  that 
date  their  commencement  from  the  pontificate  of  Hil- 
debrand  ;  yet  always  remembering  that  those  dog- 
days  of  spiritual  arrogance  were  distinguished  from 
the  preceding  era,  more  by  the  firm  and  digested  con-^ 
dition  of  its  maxims,  and  by  the  bold  avowal  of  them, 
than  by  any  real  difference  of  principle.  If  the  read- 
er has  been  accustomed  to  think  that  the  popery  of 
St.  Dunstan,  St.  Becket,  and  St.  Dominic,  was  the 
popery  of  those  times,  distinctively^  he  will  do  well 
to  take  in  hand  the  bulky  folio  that  contains  the  De- 
cretals of  Gregory  IX.,  where  he  will  find  the  adult 
popery  of  that  pontiff's  era  set  out  in  all  its  rules  and 
practices,  even  to  the  most  minute  points,  and  these, 
often  sustained  by,  or  expressed  in,  the  very  words  of 
the  great  writers  of  the  fourth  and  earlier  centuries. 
If  any  are  not  convinced  of  it,  let  them  give  the  ne- 
cessary diligence  to  learn  the  certainty  of  this  truth — 


224  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

that  the  spiritual  despotism  which  spoke  ia  the  pope?^ 
is  now  sixteen  years  old,  and  rather  more.  And  more- 
over, let  it  be  understood,  and  maturely  considered, 
that  the  Lutheran  reformation  was  an  assauk,  much 
rather  upon  the  Papacy,  and  upon  its  special  errors 
and  superstitions,  than  upon  the  theory  and  princi- 
ples of  the  spiritual  despotism,  of  which  the  papacy 
was  the  accidental  form. 

A  second  reformation,  and  it  must  be  an  extensive 
one,  remains  to  be  attempted  and  achieved — by  our 
sons,  such  as  shall  bring  the  Church  home  to  its  rest- 
ing-place upon  the  foundation  of  the  "Apostles  and 
Prophets." 

The  THEORY  of  the  spiritual  despotism  embodied 
in  the  Romish  superstition,  and  fully  realized  during 
the  middle  ages,  may  conveniently  be  exhibited  under 
five  articles,  each  of  which  makes  itself  felt  in  every 
practice  and  principle  of  the  Church  ;  and  each  is  a 
pillar,  the  removing  of  which  would  have  brought 
the  whole  edifice  to  tlie  ground.  These  articles  we 
thus  enumerate. — 

L  That  inasmuch  as  religion  is  of  supreme  im- 
portance and  of  infinite  moment,  whatever  directly 
or  indirectly  promotes  or  obstructs  the  spiritual  v/ell- 
being  of  mankind,  carries  a  consequence  immensely 
outweighingeven  the  most  important  secularinterests. 
The  very  least  of  those  duties,  or  claims,  or  func- 
tions, that  are  connected  with  God  and  eternity,  is 
therefore  to  be  held  greater  than  the  greatest  of  the 
things  of  earth ;  nay,  than  all  these  temporal  and 
terrestrial  affairs  put  together. 

II.  The  spiritual  well  being  of  mankind,  or,  in  a 
word,  the  relations  of  man  to  God  and  eternity,  are 
placed  under  the  control  of  a  visible  corporation — the 
Church,  and  under  a  rectorship — that  of  its  head, 
apart  from  whose  jurisdiction  there  can  be  no  safety 
here  or  hereafter. 


THE  CHURCH   ASCENDANT.  225 

III.  This  control  and  reclorsliip  is,  by  the  express 
appointment  of  heaven,  one  ;  nor  in  the  nature  of 
things,  can  it  be  divisible:  it  is  moreover  unchanging 
and  perpetual. 

IV.  Every  ordinary  act  and  spiritual  office,  and 
every  decision  or  decree  of  this  one  rectorial  authori- 
ity,  is  infalhbly  good,  efficacious,  and,  in  the  estima- 
tion of  Heaven,  valid  ;  and  this  notwithstanding 
the  frailty,  or  errors,  or  personal  improbity,  or  impie- 
ty, of  the  individual  from  whose  lips  and  hands  it 
may  at  any  tiine  proceed. 

Y.  The  function  of  this  perpetual  rectorial  author- 
ity includes  three  charges  ;  namely,  the  preservation 
of  truth,  the  preservation  of  morals,  and  the  dispo- 
sal of  souls  in  the  eternal  state. 

It  will  be  proper  to  show  the  practical  exposition 
given  of  these  articles  severally,  by  the  Romish 
Church  ;  and  in  that  exposition  w'e  shall  find  a 
sufficient  refutation  of  them.  But  let  the  reader 
bear  in  mind,  as  we  advance,  the  readiness  with 
which  the  principles  as  here  stated,  while  viewxd  in 
an  abstract  form,  might  recommend  themselves,  even 
to  the  most  vigorous  and  upright  minds,  as  excel- 
lent and  unexceptionable.  Some  of  the  greatest 
and  the  best  of  men,  in  surrendering  ihemselves, 
body  and  soul,  to  the  Romish  Church,  have  step- 
ped back  from  the  particular  practices  of  that  Church, 
and  have  taken  their  standing,  as  they  thought  im-. 
movably,  upon  the  theory  of  church  power,  such,,  in 
substance,  as  we  have  now  to  state  it.  The 
thorough  sincerity  and  virtuous  intention  of  many 
of  the  most  zealous  champions  of  the  papacy  may 
well  be  admitted,  Alas,  the  condition  of  humanity  ! 
How  should  we  commiserate,  and  how  tenderly 
bear  with  each  other,  as  the  unconscious  victims  of^ 
ten  of  illusions  !  and  how  should  each  bring  to  the 
severest  test  his  own  conduct  and  convictions  !  The 
legson    of  modesty   and   charity   should   indeed    be 


226  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

gathered  from  the  humihating  pages  of  church  his- 
tory. The  pious  and  the  upright  we  find  ;  but 
where  find  those  who  have  been  altogether  exempt 
from  infatuations? 

The  rel!:^ious  tlieory  and  polity  we  have  now  to 
analyze  could  never  have  bejen  imagined  by  minds  of 
that  inferior  class  which,  with  a  consciousness  of  tur- 
pitude, pursues  base  ends  by  base  means ;  on  the 
contrary,  vspirits  of  the  loftiest  order,  and  these  in- 
tensely affected  by  the  most  powerful  motives  which 
human  nature  can  admit,  and  accustomed  to  grasp 
the  largest  ideas,  were  the  authors  of  this  vast 
scheme  of  government.  Nevertheless,  it  was  a  scheme 
that  could  not  have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
social  system  witliout  the  constant  co-operation  of 
the  cruel  and  tlie  false.  This  indeed  is  the  singu- 
larity of  the  papal  superstition  (we  must  still  use  the 
special  designation,  in  want  of  one  more  proper  and 
comprehensive)  that  it  has,  in  every  age,  brought 
into  close  alliance  the  noblest  and  the  most  abomina- 
ble natures.  In  the  present  instance  we  have  to 
think  of  it  such  as  it  has  proceeded  from  the  former, 
and  intend  to  review  it  in  that  light  in  which  it  haa 
fascinated  their  regards. 

I.  The  sublimity  that  attaches  to  the  highest 
truths  surrounds  the  fundamental  principle  of  this 
mighty  system.  Christianity  has  thrown  open  to 
man  the  portals  of  eternity  :  whatever  heretofore 
had  been  tliought  great,  and  noble,  or  momentous, 
now  shrinks  and  disappears.  The  relation  of  the 
human  spirit  to  the  Infinite  Spirit,  and  its  future 
alternative  of  unbounded  good  or  ill,  involve  what  is 
too  vast  to  be  placed  for  a  moment  in  counterpoise 
with  even  the  weightiest  earthly  interests.  These 
objects,  if  once  they  command  the  soul,  and  are  in- 
wardly revolved,  and  become  combined  with  the 
moral  sentiments,  carry  all  ordinary  motives  in  their 
train}  nothing,  with  reason,  can  come  in  to  relax 


TTE  CHURCH  ASCENDANT.  227 

their  energy.  It  was  on  the  strength  of  these  very 
motives  that  the  first  Christians  "took joyfully  the  spoil- 
ing of  their  goods,"  and  that  they  amazed  the  world 
by  their  readiness  to  meet  tortures  and  fiery  deaths^ 
On  the  strength  of  these  same  motives  the  Christian, 
individually,  and  in  every  age,  if  he  be  such  in  truth, 
"  counts  all  things  as  loss,"  and  refuses  to  think  the 
sufferings  of  the  present  season,  even  at  the  worst, 
worthy  to  be  set  off  against  the  future  glory.  So 
far  all  is  well,  and  especially  while,  in  each  practical 
application  of  this  high  and  just  principle,  a  careful  re^ 
gard  is  had  to  the  explicit  demauds  of  present  duty. 
The  ascetic,  though  he  rightly  esteems  the  world  as 
lighter  than  a  bubblCj  if  weighed  against  heaven, 
forgets  that,  altiiough  nothing  else  is  substantial  in 
the  present  life,  its  duties  are. 

We  have  only  now  to  ascend  a  few  steps  higher, 
so  as  to  reach  a  position  whence  the  eye  may  com- 
mand the  spiritual  welfare  of  mankind  at  large,  or 
that  of  great  communities.  Our  individual  interests 
and  relationship  to  God  and  eternity  being  dismis- 
sed, or  being  duly  secured,  and  done  v^ith,  we  go  on 
to  apply  to  others  the  rule  we  have  applied  to  our- 
selves. And  this  we  may  do,  whether  or  not  those 
for  whom  we  undertake  to  care  are  conscious  of 
their  personal  v/elfare  in  this  behalf  :  nay,  the  less 
they  are  themselves  alive  to  what  so  much  imports 
them,  the  more  urgent  is  the  call  of  charity  to  care 
for  them.  But  this  sovereign  regard  to  the  eternal 
well-being  of  our  fellows,  involves  many  indirect,  as 
well  as  direct,  methods  of  procedure.  Those  around 
us,  far  and  near,  whom  VvO  reckon  to  be  in  danger 
of  perdition,  are  not  to  be  reclaimed  merely  by  per- 
sonal entreaty  and  instruction  ;  but  by  the  working 
of  a  certain  instituted  machinery  of  moral  and  spi- 
ritual meanst  Our  philanthropy  must  take  the 
course  marked  out  for  it,  and  no  other.  To  depart 
from  that  course,  would  be  at  once  to  spend  our  ef- 


228  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

forts  in  vain,  and  to  provoke  the  displeasure  of  Him 
who  alone  can  render  them  efficacious.  ' 

We  reach  then,  and  in  a  form  adapted  to  practical 
application,  the  prime  principle  of  the  system  before 
us.  A  scheme  of  moral  and  spiritual  means  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind,  having  been  permanently  esta- 
blished by  the  Author  of  Christianity,  all  the  indivi- 
dual labour?)  and  desires,  and  projects,  in  behalf  of 
their  fellow-men,  of  those  who  profess  fealty  to  Christ, 
must  flow  in  this  one  channel;  or  to  change  the 
figure,  must  be  made  to  converge  upon  this  one  centre, 
and  from  that  centre  must  again  emanate.  In  other 
words,  tiie  well-being  of  mankind  can  mean  nothing 
else  but  the  well-being,  the  honour,  the  power,  the 
efficacy,  and  the  enkirgement  of  the  Church.  How 
circuitous  soever  may  be  the  track  our  benevolence 
pursues,  it  must  (unless  it  be  worse  than  useless) 
come  round  to  this  home — the  Church  :  not  so 
brought  home,  it  is  idle,  fruitless,  presumptuous, 
impious. 

Religion  is  granted  to  be  of  infinite  moment.  The 
interests  of  the  present  life — its  wealtli,  honours, 
pains,  pleasures,  taken  at  the  highest  rate,  are  only 
of  finite  value  ;  and  therefore^  according  to  the  sound- 
est rule  of  comparison,  the  smallest  religious  interest 
immensely  outweighs  the  largest  earthly  interest ;  or 
indeed,  all  earthly  interests  in  mass.  Sum  up  the 
weal  and  woe  of  the  entire  human  family,  on  this 
mortal  stage,  and  it  is  as  nothing — ligliter  than  vanity, 
when  weighed  against  any  single  advantage  or  de- 
triment that  afiects  eternity.  Translate  this  sort  of 
arithmetic  into  the  somewhat  less  abstract  and  more 
technical  symbols  of  the  Church,  and  then  it  means 
this— That  the  smallest  advantage  of  the  Church 
should  be  held  or  more  importance — immensely  so, 
than  the  highest  secular  good. 

This  potent  and  pregnant  doctrine,  demonstrably 
sound  as  it  appears,  may  be  applied  to  individual  in* 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  229 

Stances,  and  it  may  lead  us,  with  perfect  coolness  and 
an  untroubled  conscience,  to  employ  the  assassin  who 
removes,  without  noise,  an  enemy  of  the  Church  ; 
or  to  consign  men  to  dungeons  or  the  stake.  We  do 
not  indeed  approve  these  pains  and  this  bloodshed  in 
itself;  but  we  desire  the  honour  and  integrity  of  the 
Church  ;  and  the  end  being  of  infinite  moment,  car- 
ries all  means,  and  makes  all  lawful.  The  only 
doubt  that  can  find  any  room  for  discussion  in  such 
cases  is  this — whether,  in  the  particular  instance,  the 
welfare  of  the  Church  does  really  demand  the  san- 
guinary deed.  If  it  does,  then  the  pang  of  a  million 
deaths  ought  not  to  affect  our  decision. 

Or  to  apply  this  same  principle  to  that  control  over 
the  affairs  of  nations  which  the  papacy,  during  its 
high  summer  season,  claimed  to  exercise,  and  did  ex- 
ercise : — when  once  the  Church  had  achieved  its 
supremacy  over  the  entire  European  community,  then 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  its  wealth,  its  dignity, 
its  means  of  influence,  its  permanency,  and  its  pros- 
pects of  extension,  were,  in  the  most  direct  manner, 
connected  with  the  course  of  national  policy,  with  the 
upholding  of  one  regal  family,  the  removal  of  an- 
other, and  the  subserviency  of  all.  The  Church, 
conceived  of  on  this  great  principle,  could  demand 
nothing  less  than  to  be  recognised  as  the  mistress  of 
the  world — the  disposer  of  crowns,  and  the  supreme 
authority,  as  well  in  secular  as  spiritual  affairs.  The 
control  of  the  spiritual  would  be  of  no  avail,  apart 
from  the  control  of  the  secular ;  for  the  former  could 
be  secured  and  promoted  only  by  means  of  an  absolute 
command  over  the  latter. 

The  churchmen  and  pontiffs  of  the  middle  ages 
verily  beheved  the  world  and  all  its  glories  to  be  their 
own,  as  the  vicegerents  of  heaven.  And  in  teaching 
this  lesson  to  haughty  princes,  an  arrogance,  propor- 
tionate to  the  pride  and  obduracy  of  their  pupils,  be- 
came them.  The  weapons  of  the  spiritual  warfare, 
20 


230  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

when  brought  to  bear  upon  the  carnal  weapons  of 
earthly  power,  must  be  wielded  with  so  much  the 
more  energy,  to  put  the  combatants  on  equal  terms. 

For  installing  spiritual  despotism  in  the  seat  of 
absolute  and  universal  power,  nothing,  as  it  is  mani- 
fest, was  needed  but  to  apply  the  great  truth  of  the 
infinite  importance  of  religion,  to  that  visible  au- 
thority, or  corporation,  which  claimed  to  be  the 
organ  and  depositary  of  religion.  This  application 
was  effected  by  the  aid  of  the  general,  and  almost 
universal  opinion,  that  allowed  the  bishops  of  Rome 
to  have  inherited  the  supreme  authority  of  St.  Peter. 
When  once  this  link  in  the  chain  was  filled  up,  and 
fastened,  tiie  most  sincere  and  ingenuous  natures,  as 
well  as  the  crafty  and  ambitious,  gave  themselves  up 
to  promote  the  cruelties  and  oppressions  of  the  Church, 
and  felt  that  they  were  sustained  in  doing  so  by  all 
the  powers  of  eternity. 

11.  Church  power  rests  upon  the  validity  of  the 
connexion  assumed  between  its  first  principle  and  its 
second  :  this  point  being  secured,  every  thing  else 
follows  as  a  necessary  consequence.  The  rehgious 
welfare  of  mankind,  supremely  important  as  it  is,  has 
not,  it  is  alleged,  been  abandoned  to  accidents,  or  left 
to  be  promoted  by  casual  influences  ;  nor  has  it  even 
been  consigned,  independently  of  human  instrumen- 
tality, to  the  invisible  operations  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 
Christianity  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  opinion,  hke 
those  systems  of  philosophy  which  were  taught  and 
talked  of  one  year,  and  forgotten  the  next.  On  the 
contrary,  there  is  a  visible  and  perpetual  rectorial 
power  (wherever  lodged)  to  which,  by  Divine  appoint- 
ment, is  committed  the  duty  of  administering,  of 
preserving,  of  extending,  and  of  transmitting  the  faith, 
the  oflnces,  and  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel.  If  the 
Church  be,  in  one  sense,  an  invisible  body,  and  if 
this  body  be  immortal,  it  is  also,  in  another  sense,  a 


THE  CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  231 

visible  body,  and  a  perpetual  one  ;  and  moreover,  if 
the  invisible  Church  be  under  the  immediate  guar- 
dianship of  the  Lord,  its  Priest  and  King,  so  is  the 
visible  Church  (in  the  absence  of  the  Lord)  placed 
under  the  control  of  an  earthly,  yet  perpetual  vicar. 
The  Lord  being  personally  removed,  if  his  followers, 
like  sheep  without  a  shepherd,  were  left  to  their  dis- 
cretion, what  could  happen  but  that  they  should  wan- 
der, each  in  his  own  way,  and  all  perish  on  the 
jnountains,  or  become  a  prey  to  the  wolf?  If  there 
be  then  a  visible  institution  for  consenting  the  truth, 
and  if  there  be  a  shepherd  of  the  flock,  and  a  rector 
of  the  Church,  whose  hand  and  lips  may  be  looked 
to,  on  every  occasion,  for  guidance  and  instruction, 
then  it  is  manifest  that  the  infinite  importance  of  re- 
ligion sustains  and  attaches  to  that  power,  to  the  care 
of  which  religion  is  committed. 

These  two  articles  involve  all  that  is  needed  to 
serve  as  a  broad  foundation  for  the  most  absolute 
spiritual  despotism.  What  is  then  wanted,  is  to 
bring  them  to  bear  upon  some  actual  centre.  In 
pursuance  of  this  intention,  it  is  next  alleged — 

111.  That  this  rectorial  power  is  one  and  undivi- 
ded ;  that  it  is  irresponsible  to  any  earthly  authority  ; 
that  it  is  unchangeable,  and  shall  endure  while  there 
is  a  Church  on  earth.  That  it  must  be  so,  might  be 
inferred  from  the  nature  of  things,  inasmuch  as  a 
divided  authority,  or  several  independent  authorities, 
put  in  trust  with  one  and  the  same  interest,  are  su- 
perfluous so  long  as  they  perfectly  agree,  and  de- 
structive of  each  other's  claims,  if  they  fall  into  dis- 
cord. Church  authority,  standing  as  the  visible  and 
audible  organ  of  the  invisible  Lord,  is  at  once  made 
nugatory  if  it  expresses  itself  ambiguously,  or  incon- 
sistently and  variously.  Truth  is  one  ;  the  will  of 
Heaven  is  one ; — the  oracle  of  both  therefore  must 
be  one. 


232  SPIRITUAL   DESPOTISM- 

But  apart  from  the  abstract  statement  of  this  third 
principle  of  spiritual  power,  we  turn  to  the  tenor  of 
the  Gospel,  and  tlie  express  enactments  of  Christ ; 
and  on  this  ground  it  must  be  admitted  that  every 
sort  of  proof,  direct  and  indirect,  favours  the  doctrine 
of  the  unity  of  the  Church,  and  of  its  visible  integ- 
rity, as  a  manifestation,  in  the  eye  of  the  world,  of 
heavenly  truth  and  virtue.  The  passages  that  bear 
on  this  point  need  not  be  here  adduced  ;  but  we  find 
them,  from  the  very  first,  forcibly  urged  and  per- 
petually repeated  by  the  defenders  of  the  general 
Church.  No  communion — no  piety  :  no  unity — no 
Church.  A  distracted  Church  must  have  forgotten 
its  glory,  and  broken  its  duty,  and  lost  connexion 
with  its  Head  ; — in  a  word,  it  is  no  longer  what  it 
calls  itself. 

If  then  there  be  one  Church,  and  one  centre  and 
source  of  authority,  where  is  it  found,  and  who  is  it 
that  rightfully  holds  the  staff  of  power  7  This  has 
been  the  trying  point  in  every  age  with  the  Papacy ; 
and  although  it  has  made  out  a  case  which  may 
fairly  satisfy  all  who  were  willing  to  be  satisfied  ;  it 
has  never  been  able  to  convict  its  opponents.  The 
evidence  is  defective  precisely  in  that  part  of  the 
chain  of  proof  where  the  firmest  coherence  is  needed. 
If  the  supreme  and  transmissible  authority  of  St. 
Peter,  as  first  Bishop  of  Rome,  and  rock  of  the 
Church,  had  been  intended  by  the  Lord,  in  the  sense 
affirmed  by  the  Papacy,  the  proof  of  so  special  and 
peculiar  an  appointment,  instead  of  being  indistinct 
and  attenuated,  and  open  to  valid  exceptions,  at  its 
comnienceme7it^  should  then  have  been  clear  and 
uncontroverted.  On  the  contrary,  this  doctrine, 
though  generally  admitted,  and  stoutly  affirmed  in  a 
later  age,  is  barely  perceptible,  ifatall,  in  the  first 
century,  but  dimly  in  the  second  ;  and  it  comes  out 
in  the  third  and  fourth  only  as  the  consequence  of 
those   political   circumstances    which    made  it   the 


THE  CHURCH  ASCENDANT.  233 

interest  of  individuals  and  of  Churches  to  admit  and 
maintain  it. 

Nevertheless  the  concurrence  of  many  traditions, 
and  the  general  tendency  of  opinions  and  of  usages, 
was  such  as  to  leave  the  champions  of  the  Romish 
Church,  from  the  time  of  Gregory  I.  and  onwards, 
in  possession  of  what  they  felt  to  be  firm  ground. 
The  argument  was  strong  enough  for  the  binding  of 
wiUing  consciences,  if  not  for  the  breaking  down  of 
an  adversary  :  and  this  point  being  once  conceded, 
or  leapt  over,  then  the  path  was  open  for  bringing  in 
all  that  remains  to  give  to  the  occupier  of  St.  Peter's 
chair  a  command  over  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men, 
absolute,  irresponsible,  unlimited,  and  altogether  un- 
paralleled. Such  they  claimed,  and  in  the  boldest 
language  affirmed,  and  actually  exercised,  during  a 
long  course  of  ages.  The  power  thus  assumed  being 
granted,  it  was,  in  the  next  place,  necessary  to  give 
it  a  specific  and  clear  interpretation,  as  applicable  to 
the  several  departments  over  which  it  was  to  be 
stretched.  It  was  therefore  a  principle  of  the  Romish 
despotism — 

IV.  That  every  act  of  the  Church,  ordinary  and 
extraordinary,  and  every  decision,  in  a  word,  what- 
ever the  Church  did,  and  whatever  it  said,  was  ab- 
solutely valid,  true,  and  efficacious,  in  a  divine  and 
spiritual  sense  ;  and  was  so,  irrespectively  of  the 
merits  or  defects,  the  infirmities  or  the  vices,  of  the 
individuals  who  might  administer  its  offices,  or  pro- 
mulgate its  decrees. 

We  form  no  consistent  idea  of  the  Papacy  unless 
we  distinctly  admit. into  our  conception  of  it  this  pre- 
tension to  a  perpetual  supernatural  efficacy, 
attending  it  in  every  step  and  act,  and  vivifying  its 
w^hole  framework  of  offices,  worship,  and  adminis- 
trations. The  very  highest  profession  of  spirituality, 
and  of  immediate  divine  agency,  and  of  continued 
20* 


234  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

miraculous  authentication  and  support,  is  the  ground 
which  the  Romish  despotism  assumes  ;  nor  can  it 
defend  itself  a  moment  if  this  ground  be  abandoned. 
Christianity  in  the  hands  of  the  papacy,  is,  through 
and  through,  and  at  every  moment,  a  heavenly 
scheme,  existing  in  the  world  only  by  the  aid  of 
miracles,  and  embodying  omnipotence  and  omni- 
science. 

Theinfallibihty  of  the  Pope — the  real  presence  in 
the  eucharist — the  unvarying  efficacy  of  the  opus 
operatwinoiihe  Sacraments — the  succession  of  mira- 
cles, and  powers  of  healing — the  efficacy  of  the  inter- 
cession of  the  saints — the  patronage  of  individuals 
and  of  communities  by  the  saints — the  power  of  mass- 
es for  the  release  of  souls — the  priests'  authority  lo 
remit  sin  and  to  bind  it ; — and  indeed  every  dogma 
and  practice  of  tlie  Cliurch,  is  a  portion  and  proper 
consequence  of  the  one  doctrine,  that  the  Church  is  a 
divine  institution,  maintained  and  administered,  from 
age  to  age,  by  the  very  same  almighty  energy  that 
gave  it  birth.  This  doctrine,  indefinitely  convertible 
as  it  is  to  all  purposes  of  sacerdotal  ambition,  delivered 
over  the  bulk  of  mankind,  without  relief  or  reserve, 
and  body  and  soul,  into  the  hands  of  the  ministers  of 
religion  ;  and  we  find  it,  not  very  obscurely  advai:K:ed 
by  the  Fathers  of  the  third  century,  very  distinctl}- 
maintained  by  their  successors  of  the  fourth  and  fifth, 
and  in  the  loudest  and  most  peremptory  manner 
affirmed  by  all  churchmen  during  the  dog-days  of  the 
Romish  spiritual  despotism. 

This  doctrine  is,  in  fact,  the  core  of  Popery:  genu- 
ine Protestantism  is  its  opposite.  Not  indeed  that 
the  reformers,  personally,  got  themselves  clear  of  its 
infection.  Luther  especially,  and  the  founders  of  the 
English  Church,  while  they  rejected  such  portions  of 
the  principle  as  had  become  the  most  oflensive,  or 
were  the  most  flagrantly  at  variance  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, or  were  the  least  capable  of  extenuation  on  the 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  2S5 

plea  of  apostolic  tradition,  yet  fondly  clung  to  as 
much  of  it  as  they  were  not  compelled  to  relinquish  ; 
they  therefore  left  their  ecclesiastical  institutions  in  a 
state  that  now  demands — either  some  further  refor- 
mation ;  or  a  candid  and  childlike  return  to  the  bo- 
som of  the  ancient  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which 
alone  is   harmonious  in  theory  and  practice. 

The  Church  having  established  its  claims  to  an 
unbounded  control  over  whatever  may  in  the  remo- 
test manner  affect  ihe  religious  welfare  of  the  human 
race,  and  having  made  profession  of  its  supernatural 
power  to  administer,  efficaciously,  the  absolute  go- 
vernment of  the  world,  it  only  remained  for  it  to  ap- 
ply its  principles  to  the  several  duties  which,  in  vir- 
tue of  its  commission,  it  was  called  upon  to  discharge. 

V.  The  Church  then,  through  the  organ  of  its  su- 
preme Rector,  and  in  the  exercise  of  its  heaven-de- 
rived authority,  holds  itself  bound  to  take  care  of— 
the  preservation  and  propagation  of  Truth  ; — the 
preservation  of  Morals  ;  and  the  disposal  of  souls  in 
the  future  and  unseen  woilds.  What  is  involved  in 
these  several  high  functions  must  be  specified. 

1st.  To  theChurch,it  is  said,  is  intrusted  the  pre- 
servation and  propagation  of  Truth.  The  word  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles,  as  contained  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, or  as  transmitted  from  age  to  age  traditionally, 
is  acknowledged  to  be  the  ultimate  standard  of  be- 
lief and  duty  in  matters  of  religion.  But  this  word 
needs  interpretation,  and  needs  it  anew,  as  occasions 
arise.  The  multifarious  heresies  that  have  sprung  up 
around  the  Church,  and  the  endless  diversity  of  opi- 
nions that  result  from  allowing  to  every  Christian  the 
right  to  be  his  own  interpreter  of  Scripture,  and  the 
incompetency  of  by  far  the  greater  number  of  the 
faithful  to  exeroise  any  sound  judgment  on  questions 
of  theology,  are,  it  is  said,  enough  to  demonstrate  the 


236  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

necessity  of  a  perpetual  authoritative  decision  of  points 
of  religious  observance  and  belief.  All  difficulties, 
and  all  diversities,  and  feuds,  are  summarily  super- 
seded, if  once  it  is  admitted  that  the  Church  is  sove- 
reign arbitress  of  controversy,  and  keeper  of  the 
truth. 

Now,  in  discharging  her  duty  in  this  behalf,  the 
Romish  Church  is  consistent  both  in  principle  and 
practice.  She  professes  to  be  always  in  immediate 
correspondence  with  Heaven,  to  enjoy  the  superna- 
tural and  plenary  aids  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and,  in 
consequence,  to  be  infallible  in  her  judgments.  On 
the  contrary,  the  power  assumed,  and  the  penalties 
inflicted,  by  Protestant  Churches,  must  be  deemed 
despotic,  presumptuous,  and  barbarous,  in  the  high- 
est degree,  inasmuch  as  these  communities  admit  at 
the  same  time  their  own  fallibility.  Confessedly, 
therefore,  they  might,  and  no  doubt  often  did,  decide 
for  error,  and  have  inflicted  pains,  imprisonments, 
and  death,  upon  their  opponents  cruelly,  unwarran- 
tably, and  in  despite  of  truth.  Measures  of  persecu- 
tion resorted  to  by  men  acknowledging  their  own 
liability  to  err,  are  indeed  manifestly  preposterous 
and  horrible.  Not  so  when  the  same  severe  means 
are  employed  by  those  who  never  err,  and  who 
know  themselves,  in  every  particular,  to  be  express- 
ing the  pure  will  of  God. 

We  say  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  Romish 
Church  are  on  this  ground  accordant,  the  one  with 
the  other.  The  papal  authority  is  distinguished 
from  all  others  on  earth  by  being  a  supernatural  au- 
thority ;  and  therefore  it  may  boldly  pursue  its  ends, 
and  fulfil  its  duty,  as  guardian  of  truth,  without 
scruple,  hesitation,  or  any  weak  and  wavering  re- 
gard to  considerations  of  mercy.  Upon  all  those  oc- 
casions when  the  frailty  of  the  human  heart  might 
make  the  chastising  hand  of  authority  to  trem- 
ble, recurrence  is  to  be  had  to  that  prime  principle — 


THE    CHURCH   ASCENDANT.  237 

the  supreme  and  infinite  importance  of  religion :  but 
religion  cannot  exist  apart  from  the  truth,  which  is 
its  basis.  Truth  then  must  be  preserved  and  defen- 
ded, at  whatever  cost.  Better,  if  necessary,  or  if  no 
milder  remedy  can  avail,  better  that  some  liundred 
thousand  heretics  should  perish  in  the  flames,  than 
thai  heresy  itself—immortal  poison  as  it  is,  should 
be  permitted  to  infect  the  souls  of  men  at  large. 
Better  that  an  heretical  prince  should  be  deposed,  his 
kingdom  placed  under  an  interdict,  and  wasted,  year 
after  year,  by  bands  of  faithful  crusaders,  ti)an  that 
Christendom  should  be  exposed  to  a  fast  spreading 
contagion,  wliich  carries  eternal  death  in  its  train. 

Not  only  tnay  the  Church  resort  to  these,  or  to  any 
other  extreme  means  for  preserving  the  truth  ;  but 
she  is  bound  to  do  so :  she  has  no  choice  :  to  profess 
principles  of  toleration,  in  subserviency  to  the  lax  no- 
tions of  modern  times,  would  be,  on  her  part,  to  for- 
feit consistency,  and  in  the  most  fatal  and  traitorous 
manner  to  abandon  the  high  ground  on  which  her 
authority  is  reared.  Unless  indeed  it  be  with  a  re- 
served purpose,  and  with  a  faHhful  falsity^  the 
Church  can  never  assent  to  those  liberal  political  doc- 
tiines  which  have  got  ground  of  late,  even  in  Catholic 
countries.  If  she  does  not  now  actually  possess  the 
powder  to  enforce  submission  to  her  will,  the  least  she 
can  do  is  loudly  to  protest  against  the  violence  done 
her  by  her  contumacious  and  irreligious  sons.  She 
should  revoke  the  titles  of  ^'  most  faithful,"  "  most 
catholic,"  and  "  most  apostolic,"  wherever  those  su- 
bhme  distinctions  are  not  merited  by  the  employment 
of  the  sword  for  the  extermination  of  heresy. 

The  duty  of  using  the  most  extreme  means  for  the 
preservation  of  truth,  or  in  common  protestant  par- 
lance, the  practice  of  persecution,  is  a  necessary  ele- 
ment of  tljis  church  theory.  Without  it  there  is  no 
longer  harmony  in  the  scheme,  consistency  in  the 


238  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

professions  of  its  supporters,  safet}^  to  the  institution, 
nor  any  probability  of  its  extension. 

In  the  happy  era  of  its  unchecked  and  universal 
domination,  the  Church  very  clearly  understood  what 
became  it ;  and  boldly  put  in  movement  the  proper 
engines  of  its  power.  While  in  this  mind,  and  while 
possessed  of  the  means  of  effecting  its  purposes,  the 
inquisitorial  scheme  might  be  regarded  as  a  mode  of 
mercy.  Was  it  not  an  act  of  paternal  tenderness, 
and  a  wise  and  kind  anticipation  of  evils,  to  institute 
the  most  searching  inquiries  that  might  lead  to  the 
instantaneous  discovery  of  error,  and  to  its  removal 
at  the  earliest  moment?  What  faithful  physician 
would  not,  if  he  could,  assail  disease  at  its  small 
commencements,  and  effect  at  once  a  sharp  but  last- 
ing cure  ?  The  severest  means  are  the  most  merci- 
ful if  they  are  efficacious,  and  if  the  malady  be 
mortal. 

So  thought  the  Romish  Church  in  her  best  and 
brightest  days — the  times  of  Innocent  III.,  and  for 
giving  the  fullest  effect  to  her  measures  she  estab- 
lished the  maxim — a  maxim  expressed  in  the  very 
language  of  the  greatest  doctor  of  the  fourth  century 
— "  that  he  who  only  doubts  concerning  the  faith,  is  to 
be  reputed  an  infidel."  This  rule,  promulgated  by 
the  Church,  and  urged  upon  all  consciences,  touched 
the  inmost  recesses  of  the  soul,  and  left  no  alternative 
to  the  sincere  and  devout,  but  either  to  reject  and 
exclude  from  their  hearts,  instantly,  the  first  sugges- 
tion of  scepticism,  and  never  to  ask  for  proof  of  any 
dogma  ; — or,  to  go  over  to  the  ranks  of  the  reprobate, 
and  to  plunge  at  one  leap  into  perdition.  The  same 
rule,  acted  upon  by  the  judicial  agents  of  the  Church, 
allowed  them,  without  remorse,  to  visit  the  most 
venial  instances  of  aberration  from  the  Catholic  doc- 
trine, with  the  severest  chastisements.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, there  could  be  no  degrees  of  guilt  among  those 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  239 

who  disputed,  where  the  Church  had  decided  :  there 
was  no  scale  of  heretical  pravity.  "  He  who  only 
doubts  is  an  infidel  ;"  and  the  infidel  must  recant,  or 
be  consigned  to  his  doom. 

But  the  cliurch  was  bound  to  propagate  the  faith 
as  well  as  to  preserve  it ;  and  in  the  performance  of 
this  duty  she  might  choose  her  means  ;  that  is  to 
say,  she  might  adopt  the  simple  methods  of  instruc- 
tion, by  the  agency  of  missionaries  ;  and  in  giving 
them  their  commission,  might  allow  them  to  make 
what  compromise  they  thought  fit  with  pagan  usages 
and  superstitions  ;  or  she  might  take  the  more  rapid 
and  glorious  course  of  open  conquest  by  force  of 
arms.  If  her  warlike  sons  could  be  induced  to  serve 
her  with  their  swords,  and  shed  their  blood  for  her 
honour  and  their  own  salvation,  there  could  be  no 
doubt  of  the  lawfulness,  nay,  of  the  benevolence,  of 
such  enterprises.  What  philanthropy  like  that  of 
conquering  empires  for  the  Church?  If  "he  that 
winneth  souls  is  wise,"  how  wise  are  they  who,  in- 
stead of  the  tedious  process  of  individual  conversion 
by  teaching  and  preaching,  eflfect  the  salvation  of 
millions  in  mass,  by  a  few  days  of  bloody  combat. 
In  her  extermination  of  heretics,  in  her  inquisitorial 
procedures,  in  her  crusades  against  infidels,  the 
Church  still  preserved  consistency  with  her  profes- 
sions and  her  principles.  If  her  theory  be  sound,  her 
practice  has  been  good  and  wise. 

2dly.  The  Church  was  the  guardian  of  the  morals 
of  the  community  ;  and  after  taking  care  that  her 
children  should  be  nurtured  with  truth,  it  was  her 
next  duty  to  see  that  they  brought  forth  the  fruits  of 
faith  ;  or  if  not,  to  inflict  needful  chastisements. 
Now,  as  the  entire  mass  of  the  people  in  Christian 
countries,  those  only  excepted  who  impiously  broke 
away  from  the  fold,  were  claimed  as  members  of  the 


240  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

Church,  and  liable  therefore  to  its  censures,  and  as. 
moreover,  every  violation  of  law  was  a  sin,  every 
such  act  of  every  individual  within  the  pale  of  the 
Church,  came  properly  under  the  cognizance  of  its 
ministers.  The  civil  authority  did  indeed  anticipate 
the  Church  in  its  inquiries  concerning  certain  offen- 
ces ;  but  she  nevertheless  retained  her  right  of  spirit- 
ual jurisdiction,  in  all  cases  whatsoever.  Crimes  of 
every  name  were  the  fit  objects  of  her  maternal  dis- 
cipline :  civil  suits  and  controversies  also  on  questions 
of  right  and  property  appertained  to  her  tribunal,  in- 
asmuch as  the  Church  should  arbitrate  in  the  disa- 
greements of  her  members.  Thus  it  was  that  canon 
law,  if  not  actually  stretched  over  all  secular  judica- 
tures, was  held  to  be  capable  of  being  so  extended, 
and  was  kept  in  abeyance  only  by  the  concession  or 
connivance  of  ecclesiastical  rulers. 

This  universal  jurisdiction  or  judicial  right  of  the 
Church,  in  civil  as  well  as  criminal  causes,  derived 
from  the  acknowledged  duty  of  a  Christian  society  to 
exercise  discipline  over  its  members,  and  to  prevent 
litigation,  if  possible,  by  amicably  arbitrating  between 
them  in  their  differences,  may,  perhaps,  under  some 
future  condition  of  the  social  system,  demand  to  be 
considered  and  adjusted  in  a  manner  not  hitherto 
thought  of.  Difficulties  of  a  serious  sort  may  here- 
after present  themselves  on  this  ground.  At  present, 
no  Christian  community,  actually  exercising  a  vigil- 
ant, impartial,  and  effective  discipline,  has  spread  it- 
self widely  enough  to  give  rise  to  those  embarrass- 
ments that  attend  the  collision  of  ecclesiastical  with 
civil  law.  But  we  may  readily  imagine  such  a  state 
of  things ;  nay,  we  need  not  imagine  it,  for  we  have 
only  need  to  recur  to  the  history  of  the  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  centuries,  to  find  manifold  examples  of  the 
confusion  and  perplexity,  the  jealousies  and  the  feuds, 
that  may  spring  from  this  source. 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  241 

When  church  power,  in  the  West,  became  ascend- 
ant, it  was  clearly  perceived  that  consistently  with  the 
principles  on  wliich  it  rested,  no  lower  ground  could 
be  taken  than  that  of  afiirming  the  abstract  univer- 
sality of  canon  law,  and  the  unrestricted  range  of  ec- 
clesiastical jurisdiction.  The  only  question  that  need- 
ed (o  be  discussed  was  one  of  exjjediency  and  policy 
in  particular  instances,  and  in  relation  to  the  usages 
of  nations,  and  the  personal  teujper  of  princes — whe- 
ther the  Church  should  stretch  her  rod  as  far  as  she 
claimed  the  right  to  do,  or  give  way  to  the  resolution 
or  the  obduracy  of  the  secular  authority.  In  her  profes- 
sions, and  to  a  great  extent,  in  fact,  the  Papacy,  during 
its  triumphant  season,  was  absolute  mistress  of  Chris- 
tendom, in  virtue  of  this  her  office,  as  guardian  of 
public  morals. 

Yet  the  Church  took  care  to  make  her  members 
feel  that  her  power  was  of  an  intimate  and  refined  sort, 
as  well  as  public  and  juridical  ;  and  that  it  was  spiritu- 
al moie  than  carnal.  The  magistrate  could  inquire 
concerning  overt  acts  only,  and  could  punish  nothing 
but  crimes.  The  Church,  on  the  contrary,  penetrat- 
ed the  bosoms  of  men,  dived  into  motives,  put  secret 
dispositions  to  the  question,  and  dealt  with  men  on 
the  ground  of  a  divine  discernment  of  hearts.  She 
professed  to  treat  the  subjects  of  her  discipline  not  ac- 
cording to  evidence^  but  according  to  truth  itself. 
Auricular  confession,  therefore,  was  not  an  accident 
of  this  system  of  despotism ;  but  one  of  its  indispen- 
sable elements,  and  a  chief  means  of  its  efficiency. 
The  connexion  of  inferences  by  wdiich  this  engine  of 
povvcr  was  compacted  was  very  close ; — pardon  is 
lodged  with  tlie  Church  ; — the  means  of  remission 
by  penance  are  also  under  the  direction  of  the 
Church  ;  but  the  priest,  who  in  each  instance  ad- 
ministers this  authority,  can  do  so  only  by  knowing 
the  wdiole  extent  of  guilt,  and  all  its  circumstances,  as 
well  of  aggravation  ns  extenuation.  To  expose  the 
21 


U2 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 


bosom  to  the  priest  is,  therefore,  the  only  way  in 
which  remission  of  sin  can  be  obtained  :  whoever  then 
would  escape  punishment,  must  lay  open  to  the 
Church  his  entire  consciousness. 

The  punishments,  or  penances,  enjoined  by  the 
Church  (wherever  she  was  actually  in  position  to 
give  effect  to  her  rules  of  discipline)  were  by  no 
means  of  a  sort  to  be  contemned.  The  conscience- 
stricken  culprit,  who  sought  a  restoration  to  hope  and 
to  the  consolations  of  reUgion,  submitted  himself  often 
to  five,  or  ten,  or  twenty  years  of  public  humiliation 
and  private  torture — bodily  and  mental.  As  much 
of  misery  as  human  nature  can  sustain,  was,  as  a 
common  thing,  inflicted  by  the  Church  upon  her 
guilty  sons  and  daughters.  The  penalties  of  modern 
law  are  trivial,  compared  with  those  of  the  Church. 
She  was  indeed  "  a  terror  to  evil-doers." 

3dly.  The  Church  not  only  claimed  and  exercised 
all  power  on  earth,  but  stretched  her  tremendous  hand 
over  Hades,  and  disposed  of  destinies  in  the  future 
world.  She  was  sovereign  of  souls.  Without  this 
awful  prerogative  her  authority  woidd  have  been  at 
once  incomplete  and  insecure.  The  wretched  objects 
of  her  vengeance  might  have  sought  to  hide  them- 
selves in  the  grave,  or  might  have  sighed  and  com- 
forted themselves  in  expectation  of  that  clemency 
which  the  Divine  tribunal  admits.  But  there  could 
be  no  escape  from  the  arm  of  the  Church.  The  fires 
of  purgatory  were  blown  or  quenched  at  her  beck; 
her  hand  even  delved  into  the  cold  sepulchre,  and 
reeked  revenge  upon  the  guilty  dust  of  her  foes  :  the 
torments  of  eternity  were  heaped  upon  her  enemies, 
and  the  thrones  of  glory  bestowed  upon  her  friends. 
Nothing  which  the  human  mind  can  imagine  or 
rest  in,  as  an  ideal  solace,  was  free  to  be  hoped  for 
without  the  leave  of  the  Church;  there  was  nothing 
terrible  which  she  might  not  inflict.  Instead  of  its 
being  said  to  tl\e  faithful  at   large,  as  it  w^as  by  an 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  243 

apostle — "  all  things  are  yours,"  the  Church,  that  is 
to  say,  its  rulers,  turned  to  the  laity,  and  proclaimed 
their  own  universal  lordship; — "all  things  are  ours, 
whether  life,  or  death,  or  things  present,  or  things  to 

come,  ALL    ARE    OURS." 

That  complicated  system  of  observances  and 
superstitious  notions  which  had  reference, to  the  con- 
dition of  souls  in  the  unseen  world,  was  an  integral 
part  of  the  great  scheme  of  despotism,  and  was  em- 
ployed to  sustain  and  extend  it,  in  every  way  which 
the  idle  or  the  well-founded  fears  of  the  people  made 
practicable,  or  which  their  corrupt  inclinations  invited. 
The  viaticum  and  extreme  unction — the  prayers  for 
the  dead,  and  masses  for  the  delivery  of  souls — 
the  intercession  of  saints — the  practice  of  canoni- 
zation, and  the  pronouncing  of  anathemas,  were  all 
so  many  expressions  or  practical  exhibitions  of  the  in- 
visible jurisdiction  of  the  Church.  From  whatever 
source  these  opinions  and  usages  had  at  first  sprung, 
and  most  of  them  are  of  high  antiquity,  the  Church, 
of  a  later  time,  wrought  them  into  her  frame-work, 
and  they  became  indispensable  to  her  security. 

The  power  of  the  Church  then,  as  keeper  of  truth,  as 
guardian  of  morals,  and  as  disposer  of  souls,  embraced 
everything — provided  for  everything,  and  applied  itself 
to  the  entire  surface  of  human  nature,  and  of  the  social 
system.  This  despotism  was  at  once  spiritual  and 
political,  visible  and  invisible ;  nothing  could  be  more 
refined,  nothing  could  be  more  substantial :  nothing 
could  better  adapt  itself  to  minds  of  the  sensitive  and 
enthusiastic  class;  nothing  grasp  with  a  stronger  arm 
the  sensual  and  audacious.  In  the  highest  meaning 
which  the  terms  will  bear,  the  Romish  tyranny  was 
universal  and  absolute.  Men  could  not  think  or 
inquire  even  concerning  the  processes  of  the  material 
world,  and  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion,  without 
treading  upon  ground  which  the  Church  had  preoccu- 


244  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

pied  ; — all  philosophy  was  either  orthodox  or  hetero- 
dox ;  and  a  man  might  be  burned  for  an  opinion  in 
mechanics,  as  well  as  for  an  opinion  in  theology. 
There  could  be  no  possession  or  enjoyment  of  the 
goods  of  life,  no  marrying,  no  inheriting,  no  devising, 
no  ruling,  no  judging,  no  speaking,  no  feeling,  no 
thinking — there  could  be  no  dying  without  the  leave 
of  the  Church,  or  apart  from  her  favour. 

This  well-compacted  scheme  was  too  complete,  if  we 
might  say  so,  in  its  theor}'^  and  principles  to  be  ever 
fully  brought  to  bear,  without  friction,  upon  the  social 
machinery.  During  the  period  which  we  designate 
as  the  dog-days  of  spiritual  despotism,  it  wanted  in- 
deed very  little  to  make  it  practically,  as  well  as  theo- 
retically entire.  Yet,  even  then  there  was  always,  in 
one  quarter  or  in  another,  a  resistance,  a  remonstrance, 
and  a  voice  of  reason  and  humanity,  to  which  it  was 
felt  something  must  be  conceded.  But  if  the  theory 
of  sacerdotal  (yranny  could  not  be  absolutely  realized 
during  ages  of  extreme  barbarism,  it  is  manifest  that 
it  could  never  be  maintained  along  with  the  expansion 
of  the  human  understanding,  with  the  diffusion  of 
science  and  literature,  or  with  the  establishment  of 
free  {x>litical  systems.  In  fact,  as  every  one  knows,  it 
fell  from  its  height  at  the  moment  of  the  revival  of  the 
European  mind,  and  has  been  sensibly  declining  from 
that  time  to  this.  Rather  than  take  wing,  and  leave 
the  earth  for  ever,  Romanism  may  adapt  itself  to  those 
conditions  of  subordination  and  political  insignificance 
which  are  at  present  imposed  upon  it ;  but  every  one 
of  these  unwilling  concessions  is  a  stroke  at  its  life — 
an  essential  inconsistency,  a  dereliction  of  its  professed 
duty,  and  a  surrender  of  the  fundamental  axioms  upon 
which  its  polity  rests. 

The  intelligent  members  of  the  Romish  Church  will 
not,  nor  can  they  affirm,  that  the  doctrine,  discipline, 
polity,  and  usages  of  the  Papacy,  as  expounded  by 
Innocent  III.  and  Gregory  IX.,  were  not  the  genuine 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  245 

elements  of  the  religious  system  which  had  come  down 
to  them  from  a  higher  age.  It  will  not  be  pretended 
that  those  pontiffs  were  innovators  and  originators  of 
a  new  order  of  things  :  on  the  contrary,  they  were 
eminently  faithful  stewards  of  St.  Peter's  house.  And 
was  not  the  Church  in  a  condition  then  more  consist- 
ent with  its  theory  and  with  its  professed  principles 
than  it  has  ever  been  since,  or  is  at  present  ?  This 
must  surely  be  granted  : — the  Church,  in  the  twelfth 
century,  was  herself  :  but  now  she  can  no  longer 
discharge  her  duties,  or  effect  her  will,  or  secure  the 
welfare  of  her  members.  To  what  sort  of  revolutions 
then  are  the  adherents  of  the  Papacy  looking,  as  likely 
to  bring  about  its  restoration  '^  Must  not  the  European 
commonwealth  first  forfeit  political  liberty,  extinguish 
the  light  of  philosophy,  blot  out  the  discoveries  of  sci- 
ence, and,  in  a  word,  drink  of  the  cup  of  universal 
forget fu Iness ?  Is  it  thus,  and  at  such  a  cost,  that  the 
apostolic  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  to  regain  its  em- 
pire ?  Is  this  what  we  ought  to  mean  and  to  desire, 
when  we  speak  of  the  future  triumph  of  the  Gospel, 
and  the  millennium  of  human  felicity? 

The  Papacy  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
prepared  its  own  fall,  by  openly  encouraging,  or  by 
conniving  at,  llagrant  abuses,  not  warranted  by  its 
maxims,  and  vidiich  roused  the  indignation  of  princes, 
and  excited  the  contempt  and  abhorrence  of  the  mass 
of  the  people.  It  is  thus  that  ancient  structures  meet 
their  ruin.  Absurdly  confiding  in  the  strength  which 
immemorial  prescription,  and  the  steadfastness  of  po- 
pular prejudices  impart,  their  adherents  fondly  believe 
that  the  most  shameless  excesses  of  official  profligacy 
will  be  borne  with  : — they  scorn  to  suppose  that  any 
will  dare  to  assail,  or  will  succeed  in  assailing,  vene- 
rable and  entrenched  corruptions.  This  illusion  is  the 
last  dream  of  pampered  hierarchs.  So  well  compacted, 
and  so  accordant  were  the  abstract  principles  of  the 
Romish  tyranny,  and  so  firmly  and  fully  was  it  sanc- 

21* 


^46  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

tioned  in  every  one  of  its  main  articles  of  belief  and 
Worship,  by  the  authority  of  the  earlier  ages,  that  it 
may  fairly  be  questioned  whether  the  Reformation 
would  have  been  attempted  at  all,  or  could  have  been 
Carried  forward,  if  the  Church  had  been  provident 
enough  to  remove  the  grosser  scandals  that  attached 
to  her  practices  ;  and  had  brought  herself  back,  or 
nearly  so,  to  the  ideal  of  her  constitution. 

Had  not  Rome  made  the  yoke  she  imposed  intole- 
rable, princes  would  have  been  slow  to  hsten  to  the 
argument  which  called  in  question  the  foundations  of 
the  papal  authority;  and  had  not  the  vices  and  the 
knavery  of  the  monks  and  clergy  reached  an  extreme 
that  rendered  the  Church  the  object  of  the  people's  ex- 
ecration and  derision,  the  Reformers  might  have  found 
it  impracticable  to  disengage  the  popular  mind  from 
its  thraldom. 

The  authors  and  supporters  of  vast  schemes  of  des- 
potism are  often  wise  and  politic,  but  not  wise  enough  } 
or  not  wise  enough  to  arrest  the  advances  of  arrogance 
within  limits  of  safety.  If  the  Roman  pontiffs  had 
conceded  something  to  the  Eastern  Church,  and  to 
the  principal  sees  of  the  West ;  if  they  had  believed 
that  they  should  stand  firmer,  propped  by  the  arms  of 
coUeas^ues  and  coadjutors,  than  reared  aloft  upon  the 
shoulders  of  vassals  ; — if  they  had  given  way,  with  a 
good  grace,  to  princes  on  the  question  of  investiture  ;— 
if  they  had  drawn  in  the  horns  of  canon  law,  and  had 
modestly  declined  to  exercise  any  jurisdiction  not  ma- 
nifestly pertaining  to  the  spiritual  interests  of  the 
Church  ; — if  they  had  refused  to  protect  atrocious  cle- 
rical culprits  from  the  arm  of  the  secular  power ; — if 
they  had  enforced  the  rules  of  religious  houses,  and 
had  brought  monkery  up  to  its  owns  professions  ;  and 
if,  moreover,  it  could  have  been  found  practicable  to 
repress  heresy  without  massacres,  crusades,  and  cruel- 
ties ; — if  all  this  had  been  done,  we  may  imagine  it  as 
at  least  possible  that  this  mighty  scheme  of  spiritual 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  247 

empire  would  have  continued,  sound  and  unassailed, 
to  tlie  present  moment. 

The  want  of  so  much  prudence  and  moderation  on 
the  part  of  the  papal  court,  brought  the  system  into  a 
po^!ition  that  demanded  a  course  of  procedure  continu- 
ally more  and  more  outrageous  and  despicable,  until 
sentiments  of  indignation  were  suffused  through  all 
ranks,  and  in  almost  all  Catholic  countries.  So  vehe- 
ment and  general  was  this  feeling,  that  it  seemed  to 
threaten  the  entire  structure  of  the  Church  with  in- 
stants neous  demolition.  The  Church  was  however 
saved — and  saved,  not  merely  through  the  inveteracy 
of  the  superstitions  of  the  common  people,  nor  by  the 
rescuing  hand  of  individual  princes  ;  and  certainly 
not  by  the  personal  merits  and  virtues  of  its  sacerdotal 
champions  ;  but  by  the  interior  strength  of  its  theory; 
and  by  the  indisputable  antiquity  of  every  main  arti- 
cle of  its  faith,  worship,  and  discipline. 

As  the  Church  fell  (.^o  far  as  it  fell)  by  the  means 
of  its  accidental  ahtises^  so  was  it  saved  (so  far  as  it 
was  saved)  by  virtue  of  its  abstract  principles,  and  by 
the  high  sanction  of  its  creeds  and  ceremonies.  Intel- 
ligent readers  of  the  story  of  the  Reformation  have 
probably  very  often  wondered  why  the  mighty  reform- 
ing movement,  which  spread  so  far,  did  not  spread 
further,  and  have  been  amazed  that  the  Papacy,  cor- 
rupt as  it  was,  i-hould  yet  actually  have  withstood  so 
rude  a  shock.  We  must  find  a  solution  of  (he  natural 
and  reasonable  question  which  this  perplexing  fact 
suggests,  by  duly  considering  that,  while  on  the  one 
hand,  the  Papacy  had  fallen  into  a  condition  which 
rendered  it  vulnerable  on  every  side,  it  was,  at  the 
same  time,  strong  both  in  principles,  and  in  authori- 
ties, to  which  the  Reformers  themselves  paid  homage. 
Alter  three  centuries  of  free  inquiry,  deliberate  reflec- 
tion, and  Biblical  intelligence,  it  is  much  more  than 
we  can  say,  that  we  have  ourselves  got  clear  of  the 
theory  of  the  Papacy  in  every  one  of  its  articles  ;  and 


248  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

assuredly  we  are  far  from  having  as  yet  thrown  off  all 
those  superstitions  that  sprung  up  in  the  second  and 
third  centuries,  and  which  the  Romish  Church  inhe- 
rited and  expanded. 

Let  us  then  candidly  admit  the  serious  truth,  That 
what  stayed  the  downfal  of  the  Papacy,  three  hun- 
dred years  ago,  and  what  has  given  it  a  lengthened 
life,  was  certain  principles,  not  yet  altogether  renounced 
by  ourselves,  and  the  retention  of  which  has  turned 
aside  the  weapons  of  our  protestant  warfare. 

Tl^e  Lutheran  Reformation  was  a  glorious  begin- 
ning, that  waits  for  its  consummation.  Had  it  indeed 
been  complete  and  consistent  in  principle  and  in  prac- 
tice, it  would  liave  been  universal  in  its  actual  spread. 
The  Papacy  still  hves,  and  it  must  live,  until  Pro- 
testantism shall  be  reformed. 

liittle  difficulty  would  perhaps  now  be  found  in 
thoroughly  dispeUing  what  remains  among  us  of  the 
theoretic  portion  of  the  ancient  despotism  ;  but  some 
real  perplexities  attend  the  clearing  away  of  those 
notions  and  usages  that  have  come  down  from  the 
times  immediately  succeeding  the  apostolic  age.  We 
are  still  entangled  in  the  snares  woven  in  the  age  of 
Irenseus,  Justin  Martyr,  and  Cyprian.  The  argument 
for  Popery  is  at  present  drawn  from  the  authority  of 
those  ancient  errors  ;  and  the  weakness  of  Protestant- 
ism comes  from  the  same  source.  Romanism  sucks 
one  breast  of  the  pristine  Church,  Protestantism  ano- 
ther ;  but  the  milk  which  nourishes  the  stomach  of 
the  first,  sickens  that  of  the  last. 

Although  the  prosecution  of  our  immediate  argument 
does  not  demand  it,  the  author  feels  almost  compelled  to 
turn  aside  for  a  moment,  to  coniemplate  the  "  Great 
Wonder"  of  the  Papal  Despotistn  in  the  light  in  which 
it  appears  in  connexion  with  the  truth  of  Christianity. 

Let  it  then  be  calmly  considered  that  the  Papacy, 
such  as  we  find  it  in  the  age  of  its  consummation,  was 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  249 

in  no  important  sense  the  creation  of  that  same  age,  nor 
the  product  of  the  seven  preceding  centuries,  during 
whicli  the  Roman  pontiffs  had  occupied  a  clear  field  for 
eflecting  their  project  of  universal  supremacy.  Nor 
dare  Vv^e  assign  its  commencement  to  the  ambiguous  pe- 
riod of  rather  more  than  two  hundred  years,  tliat  inter- 
venes between  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  and  the 
pontificate  of  Gregory  the  Great.  With  the  remains  of 
Christian  antiquity  before  us,  it  is  impossible  in  candour 
to  deny  that  the  vast  scheme  of  mingled  superstition 
and  despotism  which  grasped  the  western  nations  in 
the  age  of  Gregory  IX.  differed  from  the  Christianity 
of  the  third  century  more  in  extent  than  in  quality, 
more  in  form  than  in  substance,  more  in  arrogance  of 
mouth,  than  in  heart  and  disposition,  more  in  power, 
than  in  will :  or  in  a  word,  that  the  one  was  hke  the 
other,  as  the  full  blown  flower  is  like  the  bud. 

By  steps,  too  insensible  and  easy  to  admit  of  their 
being  now  distinctly  traced,  the  rehgious  system  profess- 
ed in  the  Christian  Church,  had,  in  the  course  of  two 
hundred  years,  reckoning  from  the  death  of  the  last  of 
the  apostles  become  capitally  distinguished  from  the 
Christianity  of  the  apostles ;  and  from  that  time  on- 
ward continued  to  move,  with  a  steady  and  uniform 
progress,  and  always,  straight  forward,  until  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  view  in  the  terrible  sublimity  of  a  mon- 
strous tyranny  unmatched  in  cruelty,  perfidy,  and  pro- 
fligacy. 

With  the  New  Testament  in  our  hands,  it  is  no  diffi- 
cult task  to  disengage  ourselves,  in  succession  from  each 
one  of  the  popish  superstitions.  Taking  the  words  of 
Christ  and  his  apostles  as  our  sole  and  sufficient  author- 
ity in  belief  and  worship,  we  spurn,  without  a  doubt, 
this  long  train  of  pernicious  absurdities. — What  have 
we  to  do  with  the  "  tremendous  sacrifice"  of  the  mass, 
Avith  the  adoration  of  the  mother  of  God,  with  prayers 
for  the  dead,  or  with  prayers  to  them,  or  with  the  inter- 
cession of  saints,  or  with  the  seven  sacraments,  or  with 


250  SPIRITUAL     DESPOTISM. 

holy  water,  holy  oil,  holy  vestments,  and  crossing  of  the 
forehead;  with  the  worship  of  images,  pictures,  and 
relics;  with  penance,  purgatory,  auricular  confession, in- 
dulgences, and  works  of  supererogation ;  with  monkery 
and  cehbacy,  or  with  lying  miracles?  The  modern 
Christian,  Bible  in  hand,  throws  off  these  follies  and 
abominations,  as  a  man  would  rend  from  his  shoulders 
a  fool's  chequered  coat,  that  had  been  forced  upon  him. 
But  in  doing  so,  how  little  does  he  ordinarily  recollect 
that  he  is  treating  with  contempt  (a  deserved  contempt 
indeed,)  the  sense,  practice,  and  persuasion  of  the  Chris- 
tian community,  almost  from  the  first,  and  almost  uni- 
versally ?  These  very  usages,  these  ceremonies,  senti- 
ments, opinions,  sprung  up,  we  hardly  know  how,  in 
the  earliest  times,  obtained  the  approval,  in  long  succes- 
sion, of  every  leading  and  accomplished  mind,  of  all 
the  Fathers,  Doctors,  and  Rulers  of  the  Church — of 
confessors  and  of  martyrs  ! 

Nevertheless,  nothing  else  can  be  done,  but  to  set  at 
nought  this  weight  and  universality  of  authority  ; — w^e 
must  choose  between  the  Scriptures  and  the  Church ; 
and  we  choose  the  Scriptures.  This  election  is  made 
without  anxiety.  The  Christianity  of  the  Scriptures  is 
thus  rescued  ;  and  we  enjoy  and  hold  it  fast ;  but  then, 
when  we  turn  back  to  think  of  the  Christianity  of  the 
Papacy,  and  recollect  how  broadly  it  was  bottomed, 
how  abundantly  it  was  sanctioned,  and  especially  how 
insensibly  and  involuntarily  it  became  what  at  length 
it  was,  and  remember  too  that  it  has  filled  a  vast  space 
of  time,  even  while  the  millions  of  millions  of  fifty  gen- 
erations of  men  have  gone  through  their  term  on  earth; 
when  considerations  such  as  these  are  vividly  entertain- 
ed, the  mind  sinks  under  its  own  sad  and  racking  re^ 
flections.  What  and  where  has  been  our  Christianity 
through  these  vast  cycles  of  time  ! 

A  sound  mind,  however,  does  not  brood  long  over 
depths  it  cannot  fathom  ;  but  rather  turns  to  what  is 
certain,  and  practically  clear  and  palpable. — The  inde- 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  251 

pendent  evidences  on  which  our  faith  rests  are  not  any- 
way touched  by  perplexities  of  this  kind.  We  may 
nevertheless  reasonably  make  search,  among  these 
evidences  for  some  prophetic  indications  of  what  was  in 
fact  to  happen.  How  depressing  soever  may  be  the 
thought  of  an  apostacy  of  sixteen  hundred  years,  yet 
our  faith  is  rather  confirmed  than  weakened,  if  we  find 
this  "fiiUing  away"  to  have  been  pictured  in  its  great 
outlines  and  colours  upon  the  pages  of  the  inspired  wri- 
ters. 

If  the  prophetic  voice  which  was  heard  so  often  in 
the  times  of  the  old  dispensation  speaks  also  in  the  new, 
and  if  indeed  the  Papacy  be  what  Protestants  think  it, 
there  will  then  be  the  strongest  imaginable  antecedent 
probability  that  this  great  apostacy  must  find  a  promi- 
nent place  in  the  perspective  of  ages.  If  not,  what  are 
we  to  conclude  ?  That  the  Papacy,  after  all,  was  com- 
placently foreknown  as  the  bright  consummation  of 
Christianity?  or  that,  being  such  as  we  deem  it,  cor- 
rupt, mischievous,  abominable,  it  nevertheless  was  light- 
ly accounted  of  by  Heaven,  and  regarded  as  an  incon- 
siderable accident  of  human  affairs,  and  less  worthy  to 
be  pointed  at  by  the  finger  of  Omniscience,  than  the 
fortunes  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  fate  of  battles,  the 
conquests  of  Saracens,  the  triumphs  of  Turks?  This 
is  h<ird  to  admit.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  with  a  strong, 
and  even  peremptory  expectation  that  we  turn  to  the  in- 
spired pages  in  search  of  what,  if  it  stands  there  at  all, 
will  doubtless  wear  no  ambiguous  colours.  The  pre- 
monition of  so  mighty  an  object,  and  one  marked  by 
characteristics  so  broad,  will  be  conveyed  in  symbols 
that  shall  arrest  the  eye,  and  command  the  convictions 
of  every  plain  and  vigorous  understandinir.  After  in- 
genious sophisticated  criticism  has  done  its  utmost  to 
put  another  meaning  upon  the  prophetic  passage,  its  ob- 
vious sense,  in  all  the  freshness  of  truth,  shall  return 
upon  our  minds  ;  and  the  more  so,  in  proportion  to  the 
exactness  and  familiarity  of  our  acquaintance  with  the 


252  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

system  which  we  assume  to  have  been  the  antitype  of 
the  prophecy. 

These  very  predicaments  we  hold  to  attach  to  the  of- 
ten cited  passages  in  the  PaiiHne  epistles,  and  to  certain 
portions  of  the  Apocalypse.  True  it  is  that  there  is 
not  a  prophecy  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  of  the  New, 
which  erudite  obliquity,  or  the  affectation  of  originality 
and  of  superiority  to  common  prejudice,  has  not  at- 
tempted to  turn  aside  from  its  obvious  import.  But  if 
every  such  attenuated  criticism  is  to  he  respectfully 
listened  to,  we  shall  do  better  to  close  the  prophetic 
Scriptures  at  once  ;  for  it  is  manifest  that,  if  so  iian- 
dled,  the  study  of  them  can  subserve  no  valuable  pur- 
pose. Nay,  instead  of  furnishing  invincible  proof  of 
the  divine  origin  of  the  writings  that  contain  ihenij 
these  prophetic  passages  plunge  us  in  difficulties  not 
to  be  evaded. 

Did  the  apostles  entertain  the  hope  of  a  speedy  and 
triumphant  spread  of  Christianity  through  the  world? 
It  does  not  appear  that  they  did.  Whatever  bright 
dreams  they  might  have  indulged  during  the  term  of 
their  Lord's  ministry,  no  trace  of  any  such  expectation 
is  to  be  found  in  their  discourses  or  epistles.  The  an- 
cient promise  of  the  ultitnate,  but  remote  prevalence 
of  truth,  does  but  dimly  illumine  their  pages.  Their 
immediate  prospect,  it  is  manifest,  was  altogether  of  a 
different  kind,  and  the  fact  of  deliberately  entertaining 
such  a  prospect,  on  the  part  of  the  promulgators  of 
a  new  religion,  has  great  weight  in  relation  to  the 
genuineness  of  their  testimony.  They  expected  no- 
thing better  than  bonds,  imprisonments,  and  every 
sort  of  hostility  from  the  world.  P3ut  this  is  not  all, 
for  tliey  expected  also  heresies,  corruptions,  delusions, 
to  spring  from  the  bosom  of  the  Church  itself.  If  this 
anticipation  be  regarded  as  resulting  simply  from  their 
own  sober  estimate  of  human  nature,  and  their  know- 
ledge of  the  ordinary  course  of  human  affairs,  it  atlbrds 
a  most  conclusive  evidence  of  their  personal  freedom 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  253 

from  extravagance  and  enthusiasm  :  or  if  we  attribute 
it  to  the  divine  prej^cience  specially  conveyed  to  them, 
then  the  history  of  the  Church  comes  in  to  illustrate 
the  prophetic  forewarning,  and  so  to  estabhsh  the 
truth  of  Christianity. 

But  let  us  for  a  moment  give  attention  to  the  terms 
in  which  these  melancholy  anticipations  are  expressed  : 
we  shall  find  that  there  is  a  progression  from  a  style 
of  general  and  comprehensive  intimation,  to  language 
the  most  special  and  determinate. 

"  I  know,"  says  Paul,  in  addressing  the  elders  of 
the  Ephesian  Church,  "  I  know  that,  after  my  depart- 
ing, grievous  wolves  shall  enter  in,  not  sparing  the 
flock :"  thiit  is  to  say,  merciless  persecutors.  And 
also  that,  "from  among  3^ourselves,  shall  some  spring 
up,  who,  for  the  purpose  of  making  themselves  the 
heads  of  a  party,  shall  teach  a  perverted  doctrine."' 
The  mischiefs  that  were  to  arise  from  spiritual  ambi- 
tion are  here  anticipated  ;  yet  this  is  only  a  half  of  the 
caution  which  the  apostle's  prescience  prompted  him 
to  give.  He  foresaw  what,  in  fact,  proved  to  be  the 
main  means  of  corrupting  Christianity,  namely — the 
opportunity  which  the  teachers  of  this  powerful  doc- 
trine too  soon  found  for  converting  it  into  an  engine  of 
extortion  ; — :not  indeed  by  the  aid  of  statutes,  but  by 
the  abuse  of  that  voluntary  system  upon  which,  un- 
avoidably, the  ministers  of  religion  were  to  be  thrown. 
He  points  these  elders  to  the  disinterestedness  of  his 
own  conduct;  "I  have  coveted  no  man's  silver  or 
gold  ;"  and  concludes  his  energetic  exhortations  by 
that  maxim  of  the  Lord,  which,  as  he  foresaw,  the 
heads  of  a  voluntary  society  would  most  of  all  need  to 
keep  in  mind,  namely — "  That  it  is  more  blessed  to 
give  than  to  receive."  From  certain  passages  of  his 
epistles  it  appears  that  he  lived  to  sec  his  sad  expecta- 
tion realized,  and  that  while  he  and  his  colleagues 
were  yet  present  in  the  Churches,  there  were  those 
who  "  made  a  gain  of  godliness,"  and,  with  the  worst 
22 


254  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

intentions,  tickled  the  ears  of  the  people  with  the  flat- 
tering sounds  of  a  corrupted  and  corrupting  Gospel. 
So  far,  then,  it  is  plain,  that  the  chief  occasion  of 
the  early  perversion  of  Christianity,  namely,  the  natu- 
ral, and  almost  inevitable  abuse  to  which  the  volun- 
tary principle  is  liable,  was  distinctly  anticipated  by 
St.  Paul.  Though  unable  to  place  the  Christian 
polity  on  any  other  foundation,  from  the  actual  circum- 
stances of  its  first  promulgation,  he  was  not  bhnd  to 
what  would  be  its  consequences. 

St.  Peter,  hkewise,  we  find  to  have  had  the  same 
clear  (and  no  doubt  divinely  imparted)  foresight  of 
these  very  evils.  The  abuses  which  began  to  work 
in  his  own  time,  and  which  we  trace  regularly  in  their 
increase  from  the  apostolic  age  till  the  Papacy  was 
ripenedj  he  depicts  in  the  most  specific  terms.  "There 
were  false  prophets  among  the  (ancient)  people  ;  even 
as  there  shall  be  false  teachers  among  you,  who  shall 
insinuate  destructive  errors,  ....  and  who,  in  their 
rapacity,  shall  make  a  merchandize  of  you."'  The 
parallel  passage  in  the  Epistle  of  Jude  presents  the 
same  characteristics — the  future  corrupters  of  truth 
would  be  such  as  "  run  greedily  in  the  way  of  Balaam, 
for  reward." 

Another  portraiture  of  the  corrupted  Christianity 
which  was  soon  to  prevail,  though  not  given  in  pro- 
phetic form,  occurs  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  ; 
nor  can  we  fail  to  catch  the  features  of  its  specious 
pietism,  such  as — the  enforcement  of  arbitrary  ob- 
servances in  relation  to  meats,  and  drinks,  and  festi- 
vals— an  affected  dernureness — the  veneration  paid  to 
celestial  beings— the  rigid  abstinence  from  things  un- 
lawful—  the  multiplication  of  canons  and  human  con- 
stitutions, and  the  false  recommendation  these  errors 
should  receive  from  their  apparent  tendency  to  promote 
self-denial,  lowliness  of  spirit,  and  abstracted  devotion. 
It  is  remarkable  that,  in  introducing  his  caution  against 
these  flattering  perversions,  the  apostle  employs  the 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  255 

very  term,  "philosophy" — "vain  deceit"  as  it  was, 
which,  at  a  very  early  time,  was  adopted,  and  long 
continued  to  be  a  cant  phrase,  and  the  conventional 
designation  of  the  system  and  the  principle  of  monk- 
ery. The  meditative,  abstemious,  and  solitary  Hfe 
was  called  the  "  divine  philosophy:"  so  it  is  perpetually 
described  by  its  advocates  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries. 

We  come  next  to  formal  predictions :  such  is  to  be 
reckoned  that  noted  passage  in  the  Second  Epistle  to 
Timothy.  In  ever}^  age  and  country,  mankind  at 
large  have  too  nearly  answered  to  the  description 
which  the  apostle  there  advances  as  specially  charac- 
teristic of  a  future  era.  There  would  therefore  be  no 
significance  whatever  in  a  prediction  of  this  sort,  un- 
derstood as  being  vaguely  applicable  to  the  open 
world.  But  it  acquires  pertinence  by  being  attached 
to  the  Church,  as  distinguished  from  the  world.  In- 
deed, this  sense  of  the  prediction  is  determined  by  the 
closing  phrase,  in  which  those  spoken  of  are  said  to 
possess  a  form  or  semblance  of  religion,  though  they 
reject  what  might  render  it  efficacious. 

"  This  know  that  (instead  of  the  triumphant  spread 
of  pure  religion  which  might  be  expected  to  take  place 
in  these  last  days)  the  coming  era  shall  be  difficult  and 
dangerous  ;  for  (the  professors  of  Christianity)  shall 
{as  such)  be  interested,  avaricious,  boastful,  high- 
minded,  impious  in  language,  regardless  of  natural 
relationships,  ungracious,  unholy,  insensible  to  the 
common  charities  of  life,  violators  of  their  solemn  en- 
gagements, false  accusers,  intemperate,  fierce,  con- 
temners of  the  good,  treacherous,  precipitate,  inflated, 
lovers  of  pleasure  more  than  of  God"  (even  while 
professing  a  mode  of  life  which  renounces  pleasure  for 
the  sake  of  God.) 

Now,  whether  or  not  we  think  these  phrases  to  be 
fairly  susceptible  of  a  close  and  specific  application  to 
the  church  corruptions  that  were  soon  to  prevail  (and 


256  SPIRITUAL    IJESPOTISM. 

several  of  them  are  remarkably  characteristic)  yet  the 
passage,  taken  in  its  widest  application,  is  proof  that 
the  apostle  distinctly  anticipated  an  extensive  and  ex- 
treme perversion  of  the  religion  he  was  aiding  to  set  up 
in  the  world.  If  we  met  with  no  other  prediction,  or 
none  more  definite,  this  would  be  enough  for  our  pre- 
sent argument,  and  woukl  alone  reconcile  the  truth 
of  Christianity  with  the  fact  of  its  general  and  speedy 
perversion. 

"The  first  epistle  to  the  same  individual  contains  a 
formal  prophecy,  announced  in  terms  that  should 
command  our  most  serious  regard,  when  endeavour- 
ing to  fix  their  application.  To  whom  then  does  this 
prediction  attach?  Among  all  the  parties  that  have 
divided  the  Christian  body,  is  there  one  whose  cha- 
racteristic usages  or  doctrines  are  here  pointed  to?  Let 
the  passage  be  read  as  if  for  the  first  time,  and  before 
we  have  heard  it  applied  to  one  party  or  to  another — 
'^  But  the  Spirit  distinctly  announces  that,  in  the  latter 
seasons  (of  the  Church)  some  shall  apostatize  from 
the  faith  ;  for  they  shall  give  heed  to  deceitful  spirits, 
and  to  the  teachings  of  daemons  (or  to  doctrines  con- 
cerning daemons)  under  a  false  pretence  uttering  lies; 
liaving  their  conscience  cauterized  ; — forbidding  to 
marry,  and  (enjoining)  abstinence  from  meats,  which 
God  haih  created  for  our  grateful  use." 

"When  a  description,  such  as  this,  meets  us,  divinely 
authenticated,  we  are  surely  bound  to  observe  a  reli- 
gious ingenuousness  in  expounding  it  on  none  other 
than  those  broad  and  intelligible  principles  of  com- 
mon sense  which  are  every  where  assumed  in  Scrip- 
ture as  the  basis  of  God's  communications  with  men. 
But  if  a  doubt  remained,  our  part  is  again  to  compare 
Scripture  with  Scripture. 

Is  then  the  fact  of  a  great  and  fatal  apostacy  in  any 
other  place  predicted  ?  The  noted  prophecy  which 
presents  itself  in  answer  to  this  question  should  be 
examined  apart  from  its  assumed  apphcation  to  the? 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  257 

Papacy,  and  after  an  independent  analysis  of  its 
terms,  we  should  look  abroad  over  the  field  of  history, 
as  connected  with  Christianity,  and  fix  where  we  may, 
upon  an  archetype; — or  if  none  appears  that  fairly 
corresponds  to  the  prediction,  then  conclude  that  the 
whole  yet  remains  to  be  fulfilled. 

"  Do  not,"  says  the  apostle,  '•  so  interpret  any  thing 
I  may  have  uttered,  either  orally  or  in  my  letters,  as 
that  your  minds  should  be  agitated  by  an  expecta- 
tion of  the  immediate  appearance  of  the  Lord,  and  of 
our  gathering  together  to  him.  Let  none  delude  you, 
or  distract  your  spirits,  and  divert  you  from  your  ordi- 
nary duties,  by  any  such  supposition  as  that  the  day 
of  the  Lord  is  at  hand.  I  now  repeat  what  you  must 
remember  1  said  when  T  was  with  you,  that  it  shall 
not  be  until  there  first  come  The  Apostacy,  and 
that  sinful  personage  be  manifested — who  is  consigned 
to  perdition,  who  places  himself  in  opposition  (to  the 
truth),  who  exalts  himself  to  the  seat  of  supreme  reli- 
gious regard,  nay,  above  every  other  acknowledged 
object  of  reverence,  so  that  seating  himself  in  the  tem- 
ple of  God,  he  puts  himself  forth  as  a  god  .  .  .  Calling 
to  mind  what  I  said  when  with  you,  you  v/ill  not  need 
now  to  be  told  what  restrains  this  (arrogant  power) 
and  delays  its  manifestation,  until  the  destined  season. 
And  yet  the  mysterious  (or  now  concealed)  wicked- 
ness, is  actually  at  work,  and  only  waits  until  the 
restraining  power  shall  be  removed.  Then  the  law- 
less one  shall  be  revealed,  whom  (at  last)  the  Lord 
Jesus  shall  destroy  by  the  spiritual  efficacy  of  his  word, 
and  bring  to  nothing  by  the  splendour  of  his  appear- 
ing ; — shall  destroy  him,  I  say,  who  exhibits  himself 
in  Satanic  energy,  with  might,  and  signs,  and  lying 
wonders,  and  who,  with  all  the  knavery  of  wicked- 
ness (maintains  his  influence)  over  the  lost  .  .  .  ." 

Now  among  all  the  persons,  or  powers,  or  corpora- 
tions, hitherto  manifested  in  the  world,  in  connexion 
with  Christianity,  our  part  is  to  choose  the  one,  in 
32* 


25S  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

whom,  or  in  which,  every  characteristic  of  the  joredic- 
tion  is  fairly  embodied.  Is  it  Judaism  1  But  Judaism, 
as  the  antagonist  of  Christianity,  was  as  fully  revealed 
in  the  apostle's  time,  as  at  any  later  period  ;  nor  was 
it  the  mark  of  Judaism  to  usurp  divine  honours,  or 
to  profess  miraculous  powers.  Can  it  be  Julian,  the 
apostate?  But  Julian  did  not  fall  by  the  efficacy  of 
the  divine  word  ;  nor  was  his  fall  followed  by  the  ap- 
pearing of  Christ ;  nor  was  his  adverse  influence  in 
any  imaginable  sense  at  work  three  centuries  before 
his  birth.  Is  it  any  noted  heresiarch,  or  any  separate 
community,  that  has  pretended  to  divine  honours  and 
appealed  to  miracles  ? — we  know  of  none.  Is  it  Mo- 
hammed ?  But  in  what  sense  was  Mohammed,  or 
his  system  at  work,  or  in  preparation  to  work,  in  the 
apostolic  age  ?  nor  did  the  Arabian  prophet  pretend  to 
miraculous  powers  :  on  the  contrary,  he  distinctly  dis- 
claimed them  :  nor  did  he  ever  employ  a  blasphemous 
style,  such  as  should  lead  his  followers  to  f<irget  that 
he  was  simply  human ; — the  very  characteristic  of 
Mohammedism  is  its  careful  and  jealous  regard  to  the 
honour  of  the  only  God.  Is  then  the  apostate  or  the 
apostacy  we  are  in  quest  of,  yet  in  the  womb  of  futu- 
rity ?  If  so,  whenever  he,  or  it,  appears,  there  must 
be  some  ingenious  sense  in  which  a  connexion  may 
be  traced  back  from  it  or  from  him,  to  the  apostolic 
age,  and  it  must,  be  fairly  shown  that  the  iniquity, 
then  at  work^  was  "  held  back"  by  some  power  then 
existing,  and  which  has  continued  to  exist,  and  is 
now  extant,  and  in  active  operation. 

Can  we  be  satisfied  to  search  among  obscure  and 
hitherto  uimoticed  objects,  persons,  or  powers,  and  to 
haul  out,  by  the  aid  of  erudition,  from  the  lumber- 
room  of  antiquity,  some  long-forgotten  personage  that 
may  answer  our  challenge?  This  were  an  idle 
industry:  no  lanthern,  we  may  be  assured,  can  be 
needed  to  find  St.  Paul's  Man  of  Sin."  We  conclude 
that,  after  learning  has  done  its  utmost,  either  to  clear 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  259 

up  the  terms,  or  to  turn  aside  their  obvious  apphcation, 
the  common  sense  of  ninty-nine  out  of  a  Imndred  im- 
partial persons  would  lead  them,  without  hesitation, 
to  name  the  Papacy  as  the  intended  archetype  of  the 
prophecy  before  us  ;  and  that  they  would  confess  the 
exactness,  and  the  special  propriety  of  every  one  of 
the  designations  which  it  presents,  as  so  applied. 
The  spiritual  despotism,  and  the  fraudulent  supersti- 
tion, afterwards  expanded  in  the  Papacy,  were  ac- 
tually making  their  preparations  in  the  apostolic  age; 
the  corruption,  which  in  the  next  century  stood  out  to 
view,  was  then  a  cloked  but  active  mischief.  The 
papal  usurpation,  which  drew  to  itself,  employed,  and 
patronized,  all  the  superstitions  of  the  earlier  ages,  was 
held  in  check,  and  kept  in  obscurit}^,  so  long  as 
the  imperial  power  retained  its  seat  at  Rome; 
and  it  made  its  triumphant  entry  upon  the  world 
when  the  western  empire  fell.  The  Papacy  usurp- 
ed divine  prerogatives ;  set  itself  above  all  law, 
human  and  divine  ;  claimed  worship,  and  actually 
invaded  the  names  and  titles  of  Deity.  The  Papacy 
erected  its  throne,  and  sat  down  in  the  temple  of  God — 
the  Church  :  it  has  swayed  the  nations  with  a  satanie 
pride,  insolence,  and  energy,  and  has  sustained  itself, 
mainly,  by  an  appeal  to  miracles — miracles  impu- 
dently false.  Finally,  the  Papacy  has  given  w^y  be- 
fore the  diffusion  of  the  Scriptures — the  spiritual  effi- 
cacy of  the  word  of  Cluist ;  and  by  its  own  confession, 
it  can  never  stand  where  the  Bible  is  allowed  to  remain 
in  the  hands  of  the  people. 

Do  we  yet  want  reasons  for  believing  that  the  Pa- 
pacy is  the  apostacy  predicted  by  Paul  ? 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pursue,  the  argument  as  affect- 
ed by  the  apocalyptic  prophecies;  nor  indeed  is  the 
evidence  thence  resulting  susceptible  of  condensation. 
It  is  enough,  in  reply  to  those  difficulties  that  spring 
from  the  melancholy  fact  of  the  long-continued  per- 
version of  Christianity,  that  we  are  able  to  say — this 


200  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

fact,  melancholy  as  it  is,  stands  predicted  and  set  forth 
in  its  pecuHar  characteristics,  on  the  pages  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  book  then  is  divine,  whatever  may- 
have  been,  during  some  centuries,  the  fate  of  the  re- 
ligious system  it  contains. 

The  subject  of  this  section  must  not  be  dismissed 
without  a  monitory  word. — The  error  of  Protestants 
has  been  the  thinking  and  speaking  of  Popery  as 
the  creature  of  the  times  of  tlie  Papacy  ;  whereas,  it 
is  the  creature  of  ahnost  the  earliest  times  to  which  our 
materials  enable  us  to  trace  the  opinions  and  usages  of 
the  Church.  This  mistake  has  not  merely  thrown 
an  advantage  into  the  hands  of  our  opponents,  who 
have  exulted  in  being  able  to  show  the  high  antiquity 
of  their  faith  and  worship,  but  it  has  stopped,  or  rather 
precluded,  an  inquiry,  than  which  none  can  be  much 
more  important,  namely,  How  far  do  we  retain,  or 
are  infected  by  the  superstitions  generated  in  the  se- 
cond and  third  centuries  ?  We  have  indeed  discarded 
the  Papacy;  but  are  we  clean  esca})ed  from  the  popery 
of  Cyprian  and  Dionysius?  A  full  exhibition  of  the 
superstitions  of  the  primitive  ages  is  now  what  is  per- 
culiarly  needed  as  preparatory  to  a  though  return  to 
apostolic  Christianity. 

In  truth,  our  protestant  Christianity  of  to-day,  is 
labouring  under  tlie  inert  residues,  or  lees,  of  three 
grand  perversions  ;  namely,  the  superstitious  corrup- 
tions, already  mentioned,  of  the  martyr  Church — the 
metaphysic  and  dialectic  corruptions  of  the  times  of 
the  schoolmen — and  the  metaphysic  and  logical  cor- 
ruptions of  the  system-making  theologians  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  It  is  well  un- 
derstood that  our  remedy,  in  each  case,  lies  (under  the 
Divine  guidance)  in  a  diligent  and  wisely-conducted 
process  of  biblical  interpretation.  Nevertheless,  the 
results  of  this  process  may  be  brought  more  forcibly 
io  bear  upon  existing  errors,  by  exhibiting,  historically, 


THE    CHURCH    ASCENDANT.  261 

their  rise  and  growth.  Towards  this  latter  necessary 
work,  the  author  desires  to  contribute  wiiat  aid  he 
may;  and  with  this  view  proposes,  in  another  vokime, 
to  convey  the  substance  of  his  researches  concerning 
early  superstitions,  and  especially  such  of  them  as 
have  survived  in  Protestantism. 

In  these  errors  all  modern  sects  have,  more  or  less, 
been  implicated  ; — some  directly,  and  others  by  anti- 
thesis, or  re-action  ;  and  the  author  hazards  the  con- 
jecture that  it  will  be  found  an  easier  thing  to  effect  a 
disengagement  from  implications  of  the  former  sort, 
than  from  those  of  the  latter: — or,  in  plain  terms,  and 
to  come  to  specific  instances,  that  the  English  Ciuuch 
— pursuing  those  ingenuous  researches  that  are  on  foot 
among  her  accomplished  clergy,  will  reject  certain  su- 
perstitions of  pristine  origin,  long  before  our  dissidents 
will  be  brought  to  reconsider  the  notions  and  practices 
which  their  opposition  to  those  errors  has  entailed  upon 
them.  How  worthy  the  ambition,  should  the  English 
Episcopal  Church  imbibe  it,  of  taking  the  lead  in  a 
return  to  primitive  Christianity  ! 


SECTION  VIII. 


SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM  SUPPLANTED  BY  SECULAR  TYRANNY. 


The  compass  and  range  of  the  understanding-,  and 
the  quaUty  of  a  man's  lehgious  sentiments,  might  be 
judged  of,  not  uncertainly,  by  the  hght  in  which  he  is 
accustomed  to  regard  the  Lutheran  Reformation.  The 
protestant  partizan,  controvertist,  and  zealous  polemic, 
for  example,  delights  to  contemplate  the  giant  energy 
and  moral  valour  of  those  champions  of  Truth,  who, 
in  the  strength  of  faith,  of  right  reason,  and  of  Scrip- 
ture, ''subdued  kingdoms,  wrought  righteousness, 
stopped  the  mouths  of  lions,  quenched  the  violence 
of  fire,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  and  turned  to  flight  the 
armies  of  the  aliens." — The  partizan,  we  say,  in  his 
admiration  of  what  w^as  effected  by  the  reformers, 
regards  the  reformation  as  a  consummated  work, 
or  very  nearly  so ;  and  having  chosen  his  patron 
saint  from  among  the  illustrious  band,  \\'hether  it 
be  Luther,  or  Calvin,  Bucer,  Melancthon,  Zuingle, 
Knox,  or  Cranmer,  tliinks  of  nothing  beyond  w^hat 
he  finds  in  that  favourite  doctor's  theological  system 
and  polity. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  plain-minded  and  devout 
Christian  thinks,  and  with  great  reason,  of  the  Refor- 
mation as  God's  interposition  in  behalf  of  his  Church  and 
truth  :  he  thinks  of  it  as  a  rescue  of  the  Scriptures, 
as  a  recovery  of  the  great  principles  of  the  Gospel,  and 
as  the  overthrow  of  satanic  power ; — an  overthrow  that 
will  be  followed,  and  in  due  time,  by  the  universal 
spread  of  pure  and  spiritual  Christianity.  This  feeling 
and  view,  as  it  is  substantially  sound,  so  is  it  always 
proper. 


SUPPLANTED  BY  SECULAR  TYRANNY.        263 

But  there  is  yet  an  opinion  of  the  Lutheran  Refor- 
mation entertained  by  those,  who,  using  themselves  to 
institute  impartial  comparisons  of  religious  systems,  de- 
cline either  to  accept,  or  to  reject,  any  particular  recen- 
sion of  Christianity,  in  mass  ;  and  especially,  who  anx- 
iously desire  to  see  Christianity  freed  from  the  bonds 
of  every  peculiar  version,  and  given  to  mankind  in  its 
primitive  energy.  These,  while  they  cordially  join 
with  the  devout  Christian  in  his  grateful  celebration  of 
that  divine  goodness  to  which  we  owe  our  deliverance 
from  the  horrors  of  the  Papacy,  are  yet  compelled  to 
grant  that  the  Reformation,  on  very  many  points,  and 
on  some  of  prime  importance,  was  deeply  affected  by 
the  errors,  ignorance,  and  vehement  prejudices  that 
commonly  attach  to  humanity.  The  Reformation 
they  think  of  as  a  mighty  convulsion,  favourable  in  the 
main  to  truth  and  liberty  ;  but  a  convulsion  which,  as 
it  w^as  violent  in  itself,  so  likewise  subsided  long  before 
necessary  forms  had  been  completed.  Those  who  ad- 
mit these  views,  therefore,  cheerfully  granting,  as  they 
do,  the  deserved  honour  to  the  prutestant  heroes  and 
martyrs,  are  very  far  from  being  content  with  what  was 
then  effected  ;  and  on  the  contrary,  now  direct  their 
hopes,  and  bend  their  endeavours,  towards  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  second  reformation,  scarcely  less  important 
than  the  first. 

With  the  faults  of  the  iheological  systems  handed 
down  to  us  by  the  founders  of  our  Protestant  Churches, 
we  have  nothing  here  to  do.  But  of  their  notions  of 
church  power  and  church  polity  it  must  be  said  that 
they  were,  in  almost  every  sense,  and  in  an  extreme 
degree,  confused  and  erroneous.  The  Reformers 
brought  into  play  principles  from  which,  in  the  end, 
the  hberties  we  now  enjoy  naturally  resulted  ;  but  we 
owe  them  few  thanks  on  this  behalf;  they  intended 
no  such  thing  as  that  spiritual  despotism,  in  its  sub- 
stance, should  be  dissipated  ;  they  meant  indeed  to 
shift  it  from  its  old  bottom  ;  yet  to  build  it  up  anew. 


264  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

and,  as  tliey  thought,  on  a  better  model.     The  eccle- 
siastical consequences  of  the  Reformation  have  an  ana- 
logy with  what  has  frequently  followed  civil  contests 
between   rival  pretenders  to  a  crown,  when  the  one 
party,  and  generally  the  assailant  party,  having  called 
to  its  aid  the  middle  classes,  and  having,  as  a  bribe, 
conceded  large  privileges  to  them,  popular  rights  and 
liberties  have  been  permanently  secured.     Nothing  else 
could  happen  but  that  the  Reformation  should,  in  the 
end,  bring  about  the  establishment  of  religious  liber- 
ty ;  yet  such  was  not  either  its  purport,  or  its  principle. 
Speaking  at  large,  and  particular  exceptions  allow- 
ed for,  the  reformers  inherited  from  the  Papacy,  and 
retained,  its  intolerance,  its  gloomy  sternness,  and  very 
mucli  of  its  superstition.     But   the  papal  intolerance 
was  a  proper  element  of  the  theory  on  wliich  it  was 
founded ;  and   however  cruel  in  ftict,  yet  it  drew  its 
reasons  from  intelligible  grounds.     The  Church  being 
infallible,  never  incurred  the  hazard  of  intlicting  its 
chastisements   upon  the  innocent;  and  being  super- 
naturally  empowered  to  maintciin  and    defend    the 
truth,  had  nothing  to  think  of  but  faithfully  and  eflec- 
tively  to  perform  its  duty.     On  tiie  contrary,  the  Re- 
formers, by  renouncing  infallibility,  and  by  disclaiming 
miraculous  attestations  of  their  ministry,  left  them- 
selves open  to  the  heaviest  possible  imputation  of  arro- 
gance, and  of  cruelty,  while  they  employed  the  sword 
and  brand  against  their  opponents. 

If  popish  intolerance  counts  many  more  victims  than 
protestant  intolerance  can  pretend  to,  that  of  the  latter 
is,  on  every  ground,  less  justifiable  ;  or,  we  should  say, 
less  susceptible  of  palliation,  than  the  former:  it  was 
practised  under  a  fuller  light  of  scriptural  knowledge, 
it  was  essentially  inconsistent  with  the  principles  on 
which  the  Reformation  proceeded,  and  it  wanted  that 
specious  pretext  of  supernatural  guidance  and  infalli- 
bihty,  which  might  appear,  even  to  the  most  upright 
members  of  the  Romish  Church,  conclusive  and  suffi- 
cient. 


SUPPLANTED  BY  SECULAR  TYRANNY.        265 

None  who  consider  the  intimate  connexion  that 
binds  the  various  elements  of  religious  systems,  can 
suppose  that  the  circumstances  of  our  having  received 
our  theology  and  our  polity  from  men  fatally  wrong 
on  the  great  question  of  religious  liberty  and  the  rights 
of  conscience,  can  have  failed  to  place  us  in  a  highly 
disadvantageous  position  ;  it  has.  in  fact,  entangled  us 
in  very  serious  (if  not  hopeless)  embarrassments.  To 
this  source,  in  great  measure,  may  be  traced  the  pre- 
sent disparagements  and  perils  of  our  national  estab- 
lishment ;  and,  again,  it  is  to  their  having  stood  in  op- 
position to  a  polity  embodying  the  errors  of  the  reform- 
ers, that  the  several  classes  of  Dissenters  in  England, 
owe,  at  once,  their  strength,  and  the  exaggeration  of 
their  theoretic  principles.  Every  error  repeats  itself  in 
the  antagonist  opinion  to  which  it  gives  rise  ;  and  it 
usually  happens  that  grievous  practical  faults  generate, 
as  their  reverse,  hypothetic  principles  proportionably 
extravagant.  If  the  Dissenters  of  the  present  day 
would  but  apply  to  their  own  case,  with  a  manly  im- 
partiality, those  general  maxims  that  result  from  a 
wide  survey  of  religious  history,  they  would  acknowl- 
edge it  to  be  certain,  that  their  own  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tem, inasmuch  as  it  sprung  by  re-action  from  the  intole- 
rant notions  and  practices  of  the  Reformers,  has  been 
thrown  far  from  the  centre  of  truth  and  reason.  What- 
ever we  hold  as  an  inheritance  from  ancestors  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  whether  it  has  come  to  us  directly, 
or  circuitously,  should  now  be  calmly  reconsidered  and 
reformed.  Nor  is  such  a  revision  likely  to  be  less  need- 
ed on  the  one  side  than  on  the  other,  of  our  religious 
parties. 

The  principle  of  the  spiritual  despotism  maintained 
and  exercised  by  the  Papacy  broke  in  upon  protesJant 
establishments,  under  ihe  most  preposterous  conditions 
that  could  be  imagined  ;  and  if  the  grand  corrective  of 
the  diffusion  of  the  Scriptures  had  not  contained  an  an- 
23 


266  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 

tidote  for  every  evil,  the  church-and-statej  or,  we  ought 
rather  to  say,  the  king-and-church  tyranny  that  sup- 
planted the  tyranny  of  Rome,  would  have  proved  itself 
by  far  the  more  insufferable  and  cruel  of  the  two. 

In  the  protestants  countries,  and  especially  in  Eng- 
land, the  people  at  large,  and  the  native  secular  clergy, 
at  the  era  of  the  Reformation,  lost  a  protector,  and 
found  a  despot  in  their  sovereign.  Heretofore  the 
kings  of  England,  for  their  own  sakes,  and  for  the 
public  good,  had  meditated  with  Rome  ;  they  had  re- 
sisted encroachments,  and  had  stood  as  the  guardians 
of  the  realm,  repelling  and  excluding  so  much  of  the 
spiritual  despotism  of  the  Papacy  as  could  be  resisted 
without  openly  renouncing  allegiance  to  St.  Peter's 
representative.  The  history  of  Europe  during  the 
two,  or  even  three  centuries,  that  precede  the  Lutheran 
Reformation,  turns  very  much  upon  this  one  point  of 
the  struggles — and,  to  a  great  extent,  the  successful 
struggles  of  the  civil  authority  with  the  spiritual,  and  of 
its  endeavours   to  reduce  the  latter  within  proper  hmits. 

Those  very  usurpations  and  encroachments  upon 
secular  affairs,  which  the  Church  of  the  fourth  centu- 
ry had  carried  far,  and  which  the  series  of  popes,  from 
Gregory  I.  to  Boniface  VIII.  effected,  were,  at  the  pe- 
riod of  the  Council  of  Constance,  generally  felt  through- 
out Europe  to  be  insufferable,  and  seemed  likely  to  be 
resisted.  The  Pragmatic  Sanction  of  the  Gallican 
Church,  the  Statute  of  Praemunire  in  England,  and 
the  opinions  boldly  maintained  abroad,  and  uttered  in 
the  Councils  of  Constance,  Basle,  and  Bourges,  all  in- 
dicated a  rapid  advance  of  the  public  mind,  such  as 
made  the  ultimate  reduction  of  the  Papacy  inevitable. 
The  intrigues  of  the  cardinals  did  indeed  successfully 
turn  aside  the  direct  course  of  reformation  ;  but  in  each 
instance  ground  was  really  gained  by  the  vanquished 
party,  and  as  really  lost  by  the  conquerer.  This  is  the 
ordinary  course  of  events  when  the  redress  of  old  abu- 
ses is  in  progress — the  partizans  of  corruption  go  on 


SUPPLANTED  BY  SECULAR  TYRANNY.        267 

triumphing  to  their  fall.  A  little  more,  and  that  sort 
of  church-and-state-system,  or  clear  separation  of  spi- 
ritual and  secular  interests,  and  well-defined  adjust- 
ment of  the  two,  which  Constantine  and  his  successors 
had  failed  to  effect,  would  have  been  brought  about  in 
France,  Germany,  and  England,  if  nowhere  else. 

The  breaking  forth  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation 
gave  a  counter  direction  to  this  movement  within  the 
Romish  Church,  and  saved  the  Papacy.  The  Coun- 
cil of  Trent  sealed  Romanism  in  its  actual  condition, 
and  shut  out  every  hope  of  reform,  except  that  which 
open  hostility  might  effect.  This  new  turn  of  church 
affairs  none  can  regret ;  for,  although  external  abuses 
might  probably  have  been  remedied,  there  was  little 
probability  that  the  theology  or  the  superstitions  of  the 
Church  would  have  undergone  correction  at  the  same 
time.  In  these  latter  respects  Rome  was  not  to  be  re- 
formed, but  overthrown.  Yet,  so  far  as  relates  to  the 
temporal  power  of  the  Papacy,  its  exactions,  and  its 
cruelty,  and  its  insolent  interference  with  national  in- 
terests, there  was  an  emancipation  in  prospect,  for  all 
the  European  nations,  which  the  Lutheran  Reforma- 
tion prevented,  and  which,  the  secular  welfare  of  man- 
kind only  being  considered,  it  did  but  partially  com- 
pensate. 

By  a  sidelong  influence  the  Reformation  set  wrong 
that  which  had  been  getting  right.  Statesmen  and 
nobles,  and  the  more  enlightened  of  the  clergy,  and 
even  the  people  at  large  (we  are  now  thinking  espe- 
cially of  England)  were  fast  coming,  or  had  come,  to 
a  pretty  well-defined  conception  of  the  important  dis- 
tinction between  secular  and  spiritual  power,  and  were 
prepared  for  measures  which  could  have  reduced  the 
papal  authority,  out  of  Italy,  to  a  thin  ether,  visible  to 
none  but  the  clergy.  The  king,  having  a  foreign  in- 
terference to  repel,  would  have  stood  in  his  natural 
place,  as  the  guardian  of  the  wealth  of  the  country, 
from  the  fingers  of  Italian  legates,  as  the  patron  of  the 


268  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 

native  clergy,  in  opposition  to  Romish  intrusions,  and 
as  the  protecior  of  tlie  persons  and  property  of  the  peo- 
ple against  the  inquisitorial  cruelty  of  the  Church  in 
matters  of  imputed  heresy. 

But  the  fatal  error  of  throwing  into  the  hands  of  the 
civil  authority  both  species  of  church  power,  namely, 
the  purely  spiritual,  as  well  as  the  secular,  at  once  made 
a  tyrant  of  him  who  just  before  had  stood  in  front  of 
his  people  as  guardian  and  deliverer.  Every  thing 
was  confounded,  and  every  thing  was  lost  in  the  doc- 
trine of  the  royal  supremacy  in  matters  of  religion. 
The  advancing  tide  of  opinion  was  vehemently  thrown 
back  ;  and  no  choice  was  left  to  the  intelligent  portion 
of  the  community  but  to  hold  to  the  Papacy,  with  all 
its  superstitions  ;  or,  for  the  sake  of  a  purer  theology 
and  worship,  to  cast  themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  irre- 
sponsible, anomalous,  capricious,  and  fierce  tyranny  of 
kings  and  queens. 

Even  during  the  hottest  season  of  papal  despotism, 
the  people  had  possessed  an  important  advantage,  in 
well  knowing  the  conditions  and  the  meaning  of  the 
power  to  which  they  had  to  submit.  The  faith  and 
discipline  of  the  Church  were  fixed,  its  maxims  and 
policy  were,  for  the  most  part,  uniform  and  steadily 
adhered  to  : — one  pope  indeed  was  more  despotic  than 
another ;  but  the  differences  of  personal  disposition 
did  not  extensively  affect  the  administration  of  the 
system  toward  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  severity 
of  a  tyranny  is  much  assuaged  by  this  sort  of  consis- 
tency and  uniformity:  only  bow  to  a  known,  a  long 
established,  and  an  invariable  authority,  and  you  are 
safe. 

But  the  inconstancy  of  the  spiritual  tyranny  exercis- 
ed by  the  Tudors  and  the  Stuarts  rendered  it  not  more 
oppressive  than  horrible.  Believe  and  worship  with 
the  monarch  to-day,  and  you  might  be  burned  for  do- 
ing so  to-morrow,  perhaps  by  himself,  or  if  not  by  him- 
self, by  his  successor.    The  Church,  the  clergy,  and  the 


SXIPPLANTED  BY  SECULAR  TYRANNY.        269 

people,  trembled  in  suspense  from  hour  to  hour,  on  the 
changeful  whims  of  the  royal  theologue.  Christen- 
dom hitherto  had  seen  nothing  at  once  so  cruel  and 
so  ridiculous  as  was  the  usurpation  of  purely  spiritual 
authority,  by  the  kings  and  queens  of  England.  The 
persecutions  of  the  pagan  Roman  emperors  tried  the 
constancy,  but  did  not  rack  the  consciences  of  the  suf- 
ferers. The  same  may  be  said  of  the  persecutions 
carried  on  by  the  Papacy.  But  the  capricious  barbari- 
ties perpetrated  by  the  English  sovereigns  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries,  exhibited  spiritual  fe- 
rocity under  the  most  appallingof  its  forms,  that  namely 
which  it  puts  on  them,  when,  although  its  savage 
heart  may  be  known  well  enough,  its  will  and  purpose 
none  can  certainly  foretel.  Those  only  could  be  se- 
cure whose  determination  was,  to  veer  with  the  royal 
faith  as  steadily  as  the  vane  with  the  wind. 

The  fault — it  might  almost  be  called  the  treason — 
of  the  Fathers  of  the  English  Reformation,  in  surren- 
dering the  spiritual  portion  of  Church  power,  along 
with  the  secular,  to  the  monarch,  may  be  extenuated 
on  the  plea,  that,  in  the  distracted  state  of  the  country 
on  matters  of  opinion,  they  had  no  other  fulcrum  but 
the  throne  on  which  to  rest  the  lever  of  reform.  It 
was  also  their  unhappiness,  not  their  fault,  to  have  to 
do,  on  so  difficult  an  occasion,  with  a  family  the  char- 
acteristic of  whichwas  an  unbounded  wilfulness,  match- 
ed only  by  its  preposterous  pedantry.  Constantine  and 
his  successors  had  entertained  a  sincere  reverence  for 
Christianity,  and  for  its  ministers  ;  and  indeed  the  er- 
rors of  their  religious  administration  resulted,  in  great 
part,  from  their  superstitious  tenderness  toward  the 
clergy.  But  our  English  monarchs  were  animated 
by  that  w^orst  sort  of  reli  ;ious  sentiment — the  thorough- 
ly sophisticated  pietism  which  belongs  to  an  old  cor- 
rupt worship,  and  which  inspires  an  immensity  of  zeal, 
but  no  virtue,  no  fear,  no  modesty,  no  humanity. 

Besides,  at  the  era  of  the  Reformation,  princes  had  been 
23* 


270  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 

lotig  learning  to  suspect,  to  contemn,  to  hate,  and  to 
oppose,  the  clergy.  Eminently  learned,  holy,  and  sin- 
cere, as  were  many  of  the  reforming  ministers,  they 
belonged  to  a  class  that,  for  three  centuries,  had  been 
every  day  more  and  more  the  objects  of  aversion  or  con- 
tempt. These  ministers  now  approached  the  throne, 
entreating  protection  and  aid,  and  the  peculiar  difficul- 
ties of  their  position  led  them  to  offer  an  incense  to  the 
monarch,  which  maddened  his  brain.  The  mischiev- 
ous influence  of  this  adulation  continued  to  afflict  the 
country  a  hundred  and  seventy  years  ;  and  it  still 
bears  upon  the  Church  with  a  serious  disadvantage. 
To  the  present  day  the  English  Establishment  has 
not  relieved  itself  of  the  humiliations  that  resulted  from 
the  surrender  it  had  first  made  of  its  independence  to 
the  civil  magistrate. 

"  His  Majesty's  Declaration,"  prefixed  to  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles,  and  the  thirty-seventh  of  those  Articles, 
breathe  an  anxious  ambiguity  in  every  line.  There 
is  no  want  indeed  of  despotic  purpose  ;  but  there  is  a 
consciousness,  poorly  concealed,  of  the  utter  incompa- 
tibility of  the  several  principles  assumed  as  the  founda- 
tion of  the  new  ecclesiastical  government.  Popes  had 
bound  consciences,  and  had  forbidden  dissent  and  dis- 
cussion :  but  they  had  done  so  on  clear  ground  ;  and 
they  had  pursued  a  course  rationally  adapted  to  their 
professions  and  their  principles.  But  the  head  of  the 
English  Protestant  Church,  with  a  cruel  liberality,  al- 
lowed and  promoted  the  diffusion  of  the  Scriptures, 
sent  abroad  zealous  preachers,  who,  in  assailing  the  old 
superstitions,  constantly  stayed  themselves  upon  "God's 
word,"  and  urged  their  hearers  to  "search  and  yee  if 
these  things  were  so."  And,  all  this  while,  the  nation 
was  solemnly  told  that,  although  the  Church  had 
power  to  decree  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  had  authori- 
ty in  controversies  of  faith,  nevertheless  "it  was  not 
lawful  for  the  Church  to  ordain  any  thing  that  is  con- 
trary to  God's  word  written,  neither  go  to  expound  one 


SUPPLANTED  BY  SECULAR  TYRANNY.        271 

place  of  Scripture  that  it  be  repugnant  to  another." 
Who,  then,  was  to  decide  between  Scripture  and  the 
Church  ;  or,  what  mediate  power  was  to  satisfy  the 
minds  of  those  who  might  suspect  such  and  such 
things  to  be  unlawfully  ordained  ?  Was  the  Church 
to  be  the  arbitress  in  her  own  cause?  This  were  ab- 
surd indeed.  But  were  the  people  to  judge  for  them- 
selves? So  one  might  fairly  suppose  from  this  an- 
nouncement of  the  limitation  of  church  authority,  and 
from  the  implied  meaning  of  the  authoritative  diffusion 
of  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular  tongue,  and  from 
the  appeals  made  to  them  by  their  new  teachers.  Yet 
this  could  not  be  when  "the  least  difference" 
from  the  articles  of  religion  was  strictly  prohibited, 
when  "  any  varying  or  departing,  in  the  least  degree," 
therefrom  was  not  to  be  "  endured  ;"  when,  more- 
over, it  was  enjoined  that  "  all  curious  search"  concern- 
ing the  meaning  of  tbe  articles  should  be  "  laid  aside;" 
and  when,  to  seal  religious  discussion  with  the  terrors 
of  absolute  power,  it  was  declared  that  "  Christian 
men  may  be  punished  with  death  for  heinous  and 
grievous  offences." 

It  was  then  "  His  Majesty,"  or  "  Her  Majesty," 
alone,  who  was  arbiter  of  truth,  and  sovereign  lord,  as 
well  of  the  lives  and  goods,  as  of  the  souls  and  con- 
sciences of  the  people.  So  far  this  absolute  spiritual 
despotism  was  in  harmony  with  what  the  Church 
had  long  admitted.  The  only  innovation  consisted 
in  transferring  irresponsible  church  power  from  spirit- 
ual to  secular  hands.  But  this  important  substitution 
assumed  a  character  of  the  most  wanton  cruelty,  and 
of  the  most  enormous  inconsistency  too,  when  it  came 
to  be  conjoined  with  the  Protestant  practice  of  render- 
ing the  Scriptures  into  the  vernacular  tongue,  and  of 
referring  the  people  to  them  as  the  rule  of  faith.  The 
page  of  history  presents  no  parallel  instance  of  fright- 
ful and  ingenious  tyranny.  Had  the  framers  of  this 
atrocious  anomaly  no  knowledge  of  the  laws  and  im- 


27'2  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 

pulses  of  human  nature?  You  may  indeed  stupify 
the  minds  of  men,  and  you  may  shut  out  every  ray  of 
light,  and  exdude  every  stirring  excitement  •  and, 
having  done  so,  then  the  despotism  which  forbids 
them  to  think  or  to  speak  is  at  least  consistent  with 
itself,  and  is  in  a  sense  merciful.  Such  lias  been  the 
despotism  of  Rome.  But  to  bring  the  minds  of  the 
people  under  the  most  intense  religious  excitements, 
wittingly  to  inflame  them,  and  to  inform  them,  to 
urge  them,  in  thunders  of  eloquence,  to  think  for 
themselves,  to  open  upon  their  consciences  all  the 
powers  of  the  future  world  ;  to  tell  them  they  w^ere  to 
stand  singly  at  the  bar  of  God,  as  responsible  individu- 
ally for  their  opinions  and  practices  in  religion,  and 
then,  after  completing  this  mighty  preparation,  to  pro- 
hibit, upon  pain  of  dealh  or  imprisonment,  the  '-least 
difference,  or  varying  of  belief,"  and  ''  all  curious 
search  concerning  doctrines,"  and  actually  to  sustain 
these  prohibitions  with  the  sword,  the  brand,  the  pil- 
lory, and  the  rack — this  was,  indeed,  an  intensit}^  of 
malice  never  before  matched  upon  earth  ;  in  exchange 
for  it  we  must  crave  the  inquisition  of  St.  Dominic, 
and  the  crusades  of  Languedoc. 

The  despots — one  might  ahnost  wish  their  names 
to  be  blotted  from  tlie  page  of  English  history, — the 
Protestant  despots  wlio  were  the  authors  of  this  bar- 
barity, foresaw,  as  it  appears,  the  impracticability  of 
their  own  measures  ;  and  their  language  conveys  all 
the  incertitude  and  alarm  that  usually  belong  to  the 
perpetrators  of  an  atrocity  which  it  is  felt  may  proba- 
bly be  reflected  upon  its  contrivers  and  agents.  There 
is  a  dignity  and  calmness  in  the  papal  persecuting 
edicts,  which  is  not  at  all  found  m  tlie  ecclesiastical 
declarations  and  the  proclamations  of  the  Tudors  and 
Stuarts.  Happily  for  England,  and  for  the  world,  the 
monstrous  inconsistencies  involved  in  the  measures  of 
these  princes  were  such  as  made  the  total  defeat  of 
them  inevitable ;  and  although  at  the  cost  of  thou- 


SUPPLANTED    BY    SECULAR    TYRANNY.  273 

sands  of  executions  and  imprisonments,  the  proper 
issue  at  length  came  about.  The  Bible,  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  people,  took  possession  of  the  hearts  of 
very  many;  and  the  horrid  tyranny  fell  into  the  pit  it 
had  duL!^  for  the  nation.  Religion's  liberty  was  won  for 
tlie  British  kingdoms,  and  a  family  incurably  despotic 
forfeited  a  crown. 

But  although  the  arbitrary  measures  of  our  reforrna- 
tion-piiiices  have  now  been  long  obsolete,  we  are  far 
from  having,  as  yet,  escaped  from  the  evil  consequences 
that  have  thence  accrued.  These  may  readily  be 
enumerated  ;  well  were  it  if  they  could  be  spoken  of 
as  likely  soon  to  be  removed  ! 

In  the  first  place,  the  preposterous  despotism  out  of 
the  midst  of  which  our  English  Reformation  arose, 
has  stained  and  tainted  the  Established  Church,  ever 
since,  with  an  intolerance  that  lingers  in  the  tempers 
and  upon  the  tongues  of  some  of  its  ministers.  True 
it  is,  that  every  clergyman  whose  good  sense  entitles 
him  to  any  regard,  discliiims,  with  abhorrence,  Lhe 
practices  and  principles  of  persecution.  Nevertheless, 
so  numerous  a  hierarchy  will  include  more  than  a  few 
whose  inferiority  of  understanding,  and  whose  perver- 
sity of  spirit,  lead  them  to  be  blowing  the  embers  of 
church  pride  and  cruelty.  The  fire,  therefore,  is  not 
extinguished;  and  not  only  are  the  smouldering  fumes 
a  great  present  annoyance,  but  they  even  trouble  our 
feeling  of  security :  it  is  impossible  to  say  what  acci- 
dent may  yet  putf  them  into  a  flame.  It  would,  in- 
deed, be  satisfactory  if  the  Church,  in  a  formal  man- 
ner, were  to  step  forth  before  the  world,  disclaiming, 
in  so  many  w^ords,  the  maxims  of  intolerance  ;  and, 
as  an  indication  of  sincerity,  expunging  every  otfensive 
phrase  by  which  her  formularies  are  still  blackened. 
This  purgation  concerns  the  honour  of  ihe  Established 
Church  much  more  than  it  concerns  the  welfare  of 
the  nation.  The  former  may  indeed  talk  errors  a 
century  longer,  if  she  pleases  ;  but  the  latter  will  listen 


274 


SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 


at  ease  to  such  idle  thunders.  Impotent  threats,  harm- 
less as  they  are  to  the  objects  of  them,  are  really  inju- 
rious to  those  who  repeat  them.  When  the  Established 
Church  shall  become,  in  fact,  the  Church  of  the  em- 
pire— and  God  grant  this  may  at  length  happen — she 
must  speak  another  language.  If  religious  hberty  is 
actually  to  be  enjoyed  within  these  kingdoms,  not  a 
phrase  must  remain  among  the  offices,  or  the  declara- 
tions, or  the  articles  of  the  Church,  which  either  openly 
insults  that  liberty,  or  which  bears  an  ambiguous  in- 
terpretation with  respect  to  it. 

In  the  next  place  ;  the  early  intolerance  of  our  Eng- 
lish Reformation — an  intolerance  that  necessitated  and 
justified  the  noble  resistance  made  to  it,  first  by  the 
Puritans,  and  then  by  the  Non-conformists — has  trans- 
mitted to  modern  dissent  a  harboured  grudge  and  ex- 
asperation of  very  evil  consequence.  As  the  Church 
still  fans  its  obsolete  intolerance,  so  does  dissent  fan 
its  resentments.  Brother  against  brother  ;  Christian 
agahisi  Christian ;  such  is  the  shame  of  our  present 
religious  condition  ;  nor  is  it  unlikely  that  the  faults 
of  the  Fathers  may  be  visited  upon  their  descendants 
of  the  fifth  generation  ;  for  the  Established  Church 
may  yet  have  to  regret  her  backwardness  in  disclaim- 
ing the  despotic  principles  of  her  founders ;  and  the 
Dissenters,  not  able  to  attain  Christian  greatness  of 
mind  in  this  behalf,  may  be  impelled  by  their  cherished 
recollection  of  wrongs,  to  promote  measures  which,  if 
effected,  themselves  would  soon  repent.  A  special 
motive  for  an  oblivion  of  past  injuries,  were  it  wanted, 
might  surely  be  found  in  a  consideration  of  the  fact, 
that  the  intolerance  and  cruelty  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  was  the  intolerance  and  the  cruelty  of  almost 
every  sect  in  the  same  age. 

Again  ;  the  accidental  circumstances  of  political  dis- 
advantage amid  which  the  English  Protestant  Church 
took  its  rise,  and  which  led  its  foundeis  at  once  to  flat- 
ter the  monarch,  and  to  encourage  his  despotic  endea- 


SUPPLANTED    BY    SECULAR    TYRANNY.         275 

vours  to  secure  uniformity, involved  a  hitherto  unheard- 
of  surrender  of  each  of  the  most  important  and  pecu- 
har  rights  of  a  Christian  community.  The  moment 
has  at  length,  though  late,  arrived  for  the  Church  to  be 
made  to  feel  the  error  of  her  founders  in  this  instance. 
Too  long  she  has  consented  to  be  mocked  with  the 
empty  forms  of  independence  ;  and  is  now  so  placed 
that  she  must  assert  and  regain  her  lost  prerogatives, 
or  fall  lower  still.  The  assembling  in  Convocation, 
efFectivel}^,  at  her  own  discretion,  and  for  the  exercise  of 
substantial  functions,  the  unprompted  election  of  her 
bishops,  and  the  absolute  annulling  and  exclusion  of 
lay  encroachments  upon  ecclesiastical  property,  are  ob- 
vious points  of  that  Church  Reform  which  the  course 
of  events  demands ; — or  we  should  rather  call  them, 
the  necessary  preliminaries  of  Church  Reform. 

Lastly,  but  by  no  means  of  least  importance,  the  rise 
of  the  English  Church  Establishment  from  the  midst 
of  the  atrocious  despotisms  of  the  Tudor  and  Stuart 
princes,  has  operated  to  throw  a  misunderstanding  and 
an  obloquy,  perhaps  not  now  to  be  removed,  upon  the 
notion  of  a  Church-and-State  system.  We  are  bold  to 
mention  this  as  the  great  disadvantage  of  our  present 
position.  There  seems  hardly  a  hope  of  dissolving,  in 
the  public  mind,  the  ancient  and  firm  association  of 
ideas  which  connects  a  church,  by  law  established, 
and  a  church  adjusted  to  the  civil  institutions  of  the 
country,  with  an  assumption  of  control  over  the  con- 
sciences of  men,  or  with  endeavours  to  compel  or  to 
bribe  men  to  conformity  ;  in  a  word,  with  the  despotic 
feelings,  language,  and  measures  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

All  parties  seem  to  concur,  although  in  nothing  else, 
yet  in  the  unhappy  endeavour  to  strengthen  the  above- 
named  association  of  ideas,  and  to  confuse  and  con- 
found their  own  and  others  conceptions  of  a  Church- 
and-State  alliance,  and  here  it  must  be  plainly 
confessed  that  the  clergy  of  the  Establishment,  and 


276  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM 

its  leaders  and  spokesmen,  do  not  appear,  as  yet,  so  to 
have  discharged  from  their  own  minds  the  arrogant 
prejudices  of  the  age  gone  by,  as  to  impel  them,  in  an 
ingenuous  and  explicit  manner,  to  renounce  certain 
ecclesiastical  maxims,  theories,  and  doctrines,  now  no 
longer  to  be  endured.  The  champions  of  the  Church 
are  not,  as  their  present  interests  should  prompt  them 
to  be,  zealous  in  holding  up  to  pubHc  view  the  ideal  of 
a  national  Church,  absolutely  purged  of  the  leaven  of 
despotism. 

But  if  the  Church  does  not  use  perspicuous  lan- 
guage on  this  subject,  and  if  the  party  whose  welfare, 
nay,  existence,  is  mainly  concerned  herein,  is  blind  to 
its  safety,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  any  of  the  oppos- 
ing parties  should  endeavour  to  set  it  right.  As  well 
the  irreligious  and  atheistic  faction,  as  the  dissidents, 
favour  the  impression  that  a  national  Church  is  neces- 
sarily a  despotism  ;  and  they,  one  and  all,  avail  them- 
selves eagerly  of  every  morsel  of  illiberality  and  in- 
tolerance that  may  happen  to  be  showered  from  the 
Church  press,  in  proof  of  the  assumption,  that  an 
ecclesiastical  establishment  is,  and  must  always  be,  ar- 
rogant and  bigoted.  To  whom  can  we  look,  on  any 
side,  as  willing,  in  good  faith,  to  consider  those  mea- 
sures which  are  now  requisite  for  placing  the  Chuich 
in  perfect  accordance  with  the  great  principles  of  reli- 
gious and  civil  liberty  ? 

None  who  are  accustomed  to  think,  and  are  ac- 
quainted with  history,  can  need  to  have  it  proved  to 
them  that,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  British  em- 
pire, and  in  the  actual  state  of  public  opinion,  in  this 
and  other  countries,  a  Church  which  professes  and 
retains,  or  which  does  not  utterly  throw  off,  the  insuf- 
ferable and  preposterous  ecclesiastical  principles  of  the 
Reformers,  can  have  any  other  fote  than  (hat  of  work- 
ing itself  on  to  worse  and  worse  ground,  and  of  be- 
coming every  year  and  day,  feebler  and  more  obnox- 
ious. Neither  statutes,  nor  the  power  of  the  aristocracy, 


SUPPLANTED    BY    SECULAR    TYRANNY.      277 

nor  the  favour  of  kings — no  nor  the  power  of  Heaven 
itself,  can  prevent  the  decay  and  fall  of  a  Church  that 
in  the  present  day,  advances,  as  its  preliminaries,  max- 
ims essentially  despotic.  Whatever  communion  or 
corporation,  within  the  bosom  of  a  free  country,  takes 
its  stand  upon  sectarian  ground,  although  7ioiu  it  may 
he  the  largest,  the  most  opulent,  the  most  learned,  and 
the  most  powerful  of  all  sects,  will  never  be  more,  or 
other  than  a  sect  ;  and  almost  certainly  will  go  on 
narrowing  its  circle,  until  it  has  become  as  inconsider- 
able as  any  of  its  competitors  ;  and,  perhaps  the  most 
inconsiderable  of  all.  t'Sects  may  be  sectarian,  and 
yet,  in  a  certain  sense,  may  thrive;  but  to  a  nation- 
al Church  sectarianism  must  be  fatal.  At  a  time 
when  the  free  discussion  of  all  opinions,  and  the  agita- 
tion of  all  interests,  tends  to  bring  every  thing  to  find 
its  real  level,  a  sectarian  national  Church  must  suffer 
vastly  more  in  the  collision  of  parties  than  any  other 
party  can  do;  other  bodies  may  have  something  to 
hope  for,  and  to  gain,  but  the  estabUshed  party  has 
every  thing  to  fear,  and  to  lose. 

It  is  easy  then  to  trace  that  connexion  of  causes 
which  entails  upon  us,  at  the  present  moment,  con- 
sequences of  the  most  uigent  and  momentous  kind, 
from  the  spiritual  despotism  of  ages  long  gone  b}^ 
The  ghostly  tyranny  of  the  Papacy,  taking  its  rise 
from  almost  the  earliest  age  of  the  Church,  reached  a 
height  that  made  it  the  dread  mistress  of  the  world. 
This  tyranny  was  first  resisted  and  then  transferred 
to  another  ground,  by  the  Lutheran  reformers.  Such 
was  the  origin  of  our  own  national  Establishment. 
Since  the  age  of  its  foundation,  although  all  reasona- 
ble men's  minds  have  come  to  an  opinion  abhorrent 
of  intolerance,  nothing  has  been  done  or  said  by  the 
Church,  as  such,  to  disengage  herself  from  the  practi- 
cal and  theoretic  errors  of  her  polity  in  this  respect. 
Parliaments  have  repealed  despotic  statutes ;  but  the 
Church  yet  stands  liable  to  all  the  obloquies  and  sus- 
24 


278  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

picions  that  attach  to  her  history.  For  aught  the  na- 
tion knows,  or  can  be  sure  of,  the  Church,  (circum- 
stances favouring)  would  say  again  what  once  she  said, 
and  do  again  what  once  she  did.  No  disadvantage 
can  be  more  serious  than  that  of  lying  open  to  such 
jealousies.  An  intolerant  sect  may  indeed  be  left  to  the 
contempt  and  obscurity  it  deserves ;  but  a  national 
Church — intolerant,  must  be  watched,  and  tied,  and 
humiliated,  if  not  rejected,  by  a  people  reasonably 
alive  to  their  liberties  and  welfare. 

If  then  the  national  Church  is  to  be  maintained, 
certain  measures  are  indispensable,  which  shall  place 
her  at  a  broad  distance,  as  well  from  the  spiritual  des- 
potism of  the  Reformation,  as  from  that  of  the 
Papacy. 


SECTION  IX. 


PRESENT  DISPARAGEMENTS  OF  THE    MINISTERS  OF  RELIGION. 


The  well-being  of  a  community,  and  by  eminence, 
of  a  religious  community,  demands  two  conditions  in 
relation  to  those  who  serve  and  govern  it ;  namely, 
that  they  should  personally  be  able  and  worthy,  and 
that,  for  the  discharge  of  their  functions,  they  should 
occupy  the  most  advantageous  ground  possible. 

There  have  been  times  when  the  ministers  of  reli- 
gion, and  even  the  people,  have  thought  of  the  latter 
of  these  conditions  only,  and  have  been  almost  indif- 
ferent concerning  the  former.  No  error  can  be  of 
worse  consequence  than  this.  To  attribute  every 
thing  to  the  official  prerogatives  and  dignity  of  the 
functionary,  while  we  care  little  or  nothing  about  the 
intellectual  and  moral  qualities  of  the  man,  is  the  last 
and  lowest  illusion  of  superstition.  How  frivolous  and 
degraded  must  the  minds  of  those  have  become  who 
are  accustomed  to  look  at  nothing  in  God's  ministers 
but  their  frocks  !  These  absurd  notions,  we  may  hope 
are  nearly  obsolete. 

But  on  the  other  side,  it  is  an  error,  and  it  is  the 
characteristic  error  of  modern  times,  and  of  Protestant- 
ism, so  to  regard  the  personal  accomplishments  and  in- 
dividual worth  of  the  christian  minister  as  hardly  to  in- 
quire, or  to  care,  whether  the  position  in  which  he 
stands  is  such  as  to  give  his  talents  and  virtues  all  the 
advantage  they  ought  tocommand.  In  ages  gone  by 
the  great  damage  of  the  church  was  a  general  want  of 
worthiness  in  its  ministers  :  in  the  present  age,  its  hurt 
comes  from  the  disparagements  under  which  its  able 
and  upright  ministers  have  to  labour. 


280  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

It  is  true  that  brilliant  qualities  of  mind,  in  single 
instances,  or  an  unconquerable  energy,  or  an  eminent 
degree  of  faith  and  holiness,  may  so  surmount  every 
disadvantage,  as  that  it  may  be  thought  there  were 
none  to  be  encountered.  From  such  instances  a  very 
delusive  argument  is  often  drawn,  of  this  sort — 
"You  find  fault  with  our'ecclesiaslical  economy  ;  but 
look  at  such  and  such  men,  and  see  how  well  it 
works  in  able  hands  ; — we  want  nothing  but  many 
of  the  same  stamp,  and  all  would  be  right."  No  rea- 
soning can  be  more  futile  than  this.  Who  shall  set 
forth,  in  full  view,  the  struggles  of  these  same  emi- 
nent men  with  the  disadvantages  of  their  position  ? 
or  who  tell  us  what  it  has  cost  themselves,  and  the 
Church,  to  counteract  and  vanquish  those  disadvan- 
tages? But  this  is  an  incidental  and  inconsiderable 
part  of  the  argument ;  for  it  is  an  extreme  folly  in 
estimating  the  influence  of  systems  to  take  rare  in- 
stances as  our  rule :  we  should  consider  always  the 
mass  and  the  many.  Is  it  asked,  what  are  the 
merits  of  a  certain  polity  ?  ask  again,  what  is  its 
operation  upon  ordinary  minds  ? 

The  three  principal  species,  or  successive  develope- 
ments  of  spiritual  despotism,  have  passed  away ; 
namely,  that  of  the  pristine  Church,  that  of  the  Pa- 
pacy, and  that  which  supplanted  the  Romish  tyranny 
at  th£  Reformation.  It  might  indeed  be  easy  to  point 
out  particular  examples  of  an  analagous  kind,  here 
and  there  around  us ;  but  we  regard  such  instances 
as  barely  worthy  either  of  formal  notice ;  they  are 
single  instances  only,  or  they  are  likely  to  become 
every  day  less  and  less  frequent.  The  whole  ten- 
dency of  public  feeling  and  opinion,  and  the  current 
of  aflfairs,  sets  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  re-action 
from  spiritual  despotism  has  gone  very  far ;  the 
clerical  order  is,  in  many  modes,  suffering  depression, 
and  is  in  danger  of  still  greater  humiliations.  The 
endeavours  of  every   considerate  supporter  of  public 


DEPRESSION    OP    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.     281 

religion  should  therefore  be  directed  toward  a  contrary 
point.  Instead,  then  of  hunting  out  from  its  corners 
the  poor  and  scattered  remains  of  sacerdotal  pride, 
we  propose  succinctly  to  state  the  most  prominent 
causes  and  occasions  of  those  disadvantages  that,  at 
the  present  moment,  depress  the  ministers  of  religion. 
This  might  be  done  within  the  compass  of  a  page, 
if  it  were  not  so  often,  that  what  demands  to  be 
named  as  a  serious  evil  and  a  humiliation,  has  come 
to  be  regarded  by  those  who  suffer  from  it  in  a  false 
light,  as  a  valuable  prerogative,  or  as  an  honour.  Ex- 
planations therefore  are  necessary  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  the  grounds  on  which  it  is  alleged  that 
what  has  been  cherished  and  pertinaciously  main- 
tained, ought  rather  to  be  abandoned  and  disclaimed, 
Of  all  parties  it  is  more  or  less  true  that  they  cling- 
to  their  loss,  and  glory  in  their  discredit. 

Whatever  there  is  that  must  be  named  as  an  ob- 
stacle, or  as  a  dishonour,  affecting  the  Christian 
community  at  large,  may  properly  be  pointed  to  as,  in 
an  emphatic  sense,  a  disparagement  to  the  clerical 
order  :  and  it  may  be  such,  partly  as  the  misfortune, 
and  partly  as  the  fault,  of  the  ministers  of  religion. 
For  example ;  every  private  Christian  of  serious  and 
ingenuous  temper,  feels,  in  an  oppressive  manner, 
the  reproach  of  the  enemies  of  our  feith.  who  ask, 
"Why  does  not  Christianity,  now  that  it  is  freed  from 
external  opposition,  command  the  assent  of  all  men, 
and  universally  prevail?"  A  reply  may  be  given 
to  such  a  taunting  question :  nevertheless,  there  re- 
mains a  certain  degree  of  force  in  the  opprobrious 
question  ;  and  the  only  way  in  which  it  can  be  turn- 
ed aside,  so  as  not  to  attach  to  Christianity  itself, 
is  for  Christians  to  take  it  upon  themselves,  and  to 
say,  "  It  is  altogether  our  fault  that  the  religion  of 
the  Bible  does  not  now  triumph  universally." 

If  the  private  Christian  should  make  such  a  reply 
24* 


282  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

to  such  a  reproachful  inquiry,  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  ministers  of  religion  must  do  the  same  in 
a  special  and  emphatic  manner.  That  Christianity, 
in  their  hands,  does  not  rapidly  spread,  and  does  not 
command  the  reverence  and  submission  of  the  mass  of 
mankind,  is  indeed  a  humiliation,  full  of  anxiety  and 
discouragement.  While  the  Gospel  was  struggling 
with  external  hostility,  and  contending  for  its  very  ex- 
istence against  power  and  malice,  its  ministers  acquitted 
themselves  of  all  blame  in  bearing  a  courageous  tes- 
timony to  its  truth,  and  in  enduring  extreme  suffer- 
ings for  its  sake.  But  their  responsibility  reaches 
much  further,  and  is  of  a  more  serious  sort,  when,  in- 
stead of  encountering  opposition  from  the  civil  powers, 
or  from  the  world  at  large,  they  receive  favour  and 
aid,  when  the  field  of  labour  is  opened  before  them, 
and  they  are  invited  to  occupy  the  ground  ;  and  when 
nothing  hardly  remains  to  be  done  or  desired,  except 
that  which  they  nxust  themselves  effect. 

At  the  present  moment,  and  in  this  country  (if  no 
where  else)  Christianity  stands  on  open  ground,  and 
may  exhibit  its  proper  strength.  It  has  all  reason 
and  argument  on  its  side,  it  has  the  voice  of  con- 
science in  the  bosoms  of  men  to  sustain  it :  it  has 
no  adversary  to  fear,  and  no  visible  obstacle  to  bar 
its  progress.  Under  such  favouring  circumstances, 
merely  to  maintain  its  ground  is  substantially  to  suffer 
defeat.  Not  to  advance  with  a  rapid  acceleration, 
is  to  incur  dishonour  and  suspicion.  This  dishonour, 
then,  where  falls  it? — not  on  Christianity.  After 
every  reasonable  palliation  has  been  admitted,  there 
will  remain  a  weighty  discredit,  which  not  merely 
implies  some  fault  on  the  part  of  those  whose  special 
duty  it  is  to  promote  religion  ;  but  which  stands  in 
their  way  as  a  disparagement,  and  as  a  hindrance; 
and  it  is  as  such  that  we  here  name  it. 

Two  or  three  periods  might  be  referred  to  in  w^hich 
religion,    though   much  mingled  with  superstition^ 


DEPRESSION    OF    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.     283 

afiected  tlie  mass  of  society  far  more  extensively,  and 
moreintensely  too,  than  it  does  at  present,  and  when  its 
ministers  commanded  the  homage  of  all  classes — the 
high  as  well  as  the  low.  In  what  manner  they  availed 
themselves  of  this  submissiveness  of  the  people  is  ano- 
ther question  ;  but  we  ought  to  desire  nothing  less  than 
that,  in  an  age  of  good  sense  and  reason,  those  who  wield 
the  powers  of  Christianity — freed  from  superstition 
and  fraud,  should  possess  an  influence  equally  exten- 
sive, and  equally  efficient.  Christianity  should  either 
be  oppressed  and  persecuted,  or  it  should  be  trium- 
phant, aiid  universally  honoured  ;  a  middle  state  is, 
to  a  religion  so  sanctioned,  an  ambiguous  state  ;  and 
while  it  thus  wavers  and  halts  in  its  course,  its  official 
advocates  stand  in  a  false  position,  and  one  of  very 
peculiar  disadvantage.  The  authority  they  might 
wish  to  exercise  for  the  mainlenance  of  morals,  and" 
for  the  enforcement  of  church  disciphne,  finds  no 
steady  fulcrum  in  public  opinion.  The  plain  rules? 
of  virtue,  of  temperance,  justice,  truth,  charity,  take 
effect  indeed  upon  the  docile,  but  possess  no  restrain- 
ing terror  in  relation  to  the  bold  and  wilful.  The 
ministers  of  religion,  unhappily,  in  protestant  coun- 
tries, have  learned  to  expect  no  submission — except 
from  the  submissive  ;  and  hence,  naturally  reluctant 
to  draw  upon  themselves  the  expressions  of  contuma- 
cy, they  avoid  that  style  of  asserting  morality  which 
would  only  provoke  insults,  and  fail  to  produce  obe- 
dience. The  entire  method  of  teaching  morals  from 
the  pulpit  betrays  a  conscious  w^ant  of  power  to 
carry  home  these  principles  in  ecclesiastical  practice. 
We  hear  the  letter  of  Christian  moralit}^,  but  feel 
scarcely  any  thing  of  its  energy.  There  is  little  tone 
in  our  church  and  chapel  ethics:  and  why,  but  be- 
cause the  teachers  of  morals  are  mere  lecturers  up- 
on abstract  principles  :  as  an  order,  they  are  not  in 
authority.  The  clergy  are  the  instructors  of  that 
quiet  minority  of  the  community  that  is  pleased   to 


284  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

attend  public  worship;  they  are  not  God's  ministers  to 
the  people  at  large.  Let  this  principle  be  considered 
as  it  deserves,  That  Christianity  can  display  its  pow- 
ers, only  when  it  is  persecuted ;  or  when  it  has  be- 
come paramount. 

Again ;  the  grand  opprobrium  of  our  modern  and 
Protestant  Christianity — that  which  at  once  enfeebles 
and  obscures  it,  and  which  bars  its  progress,  namely — 
its  factious  condition,  while  it  presses  upon  Christians 
generally,  bears  with  a  peculiar  force  upon  the  clerical 
body.  Why  do  the  ministers  of  religion  enjoy  so  little 
honour,  and  exercise  so  little  power  ? — it  is  because 
they  are  divided  among  themselves.  To  a  certain 
extent  only,  do  they  sustain  one  another,  and  are 
sustained  in  common,  by  the  broad  meaning  of  Scrip- 
ture. To  as  great  an  extent  they  diminish  the  influ- 
ence one  of  another  ;  they  stand  before  the  world  as 
the  rivals  and  antagonists  one  of  another  ;  and  they 
make  their  appeals  to  the  word  of  God,  not  only  for 
strengthening  their  general  and  salutary  power,  but 
for  defending  their  particular  position.  AH  this  is  ma- 
nifestly incompatible  with  any  high  degree  of  spiritual 
authority. 

Few,  if  any,  seem  to  have  their  eyes  open  to  the 
immensity  of  this  disadvantage.  It  is  the  infatuation 
of  the  times  to  be  blind  to  it,  or  to  labour  to  palliate  it. 
Every  age  has  been  insensible  of  its  principal  and  most 
glaring  fault,  and  assuredly  the  present  age  is  no  ex- 
ception to  the  rule.  Let  but  the  ministers  of  religion 
distinctly  imagine  what  would  be  their  honour,  what 
their  just  and  beneficial  influence,  what  their  means 
of  pastoral  government,  what  their  opportunities  for 
bringing  Christianity  to  bear  upon  the  outcast  portions 
of  the  community,  high  and  low,  and  for  making  it 
embrace,  as  it  ought,  the  entire  population,  were  they 
themselves  one  in  mind  and  one  in  communion. 
Hitherto  we  have  not  known  what  Christianity  might 


DEPRESSION    OF    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.     285 

effect,  because  its  ministers  have  never  been  willing  to 
combine  their  strengtli,  or  to  concur  in  their  measures, 
or  to  agree  in  faith  and  counsel.  The  force  of  religious 
motives  is  half  of  it  turned  in  upon  the  Church,  and 
there  evaporates  :  let  but  the  whole  of  it  flow  forth  as 
a  liver  from  its  springs,  and  nothing  could  resist  it. 

The  official  disparagement  that  results  from  this 
cause  is  much  aggravated  by  the  use  of  certain  viliiy- 
ing  arguments,  resorted  to  by  vulgar  and  secular  minds 
for  the  purpose  of  excusing,  or  even  of  recommending, 
religious  divisions.  Often  does  it  happen  with  those 
who  are  capitally  in  fault,  that  their  own  apology  seals 
their  condemnation.  Thus  there  are  some  who  do 
not  blush  to  assure  us  that  it  is  only  by  motives  of 
rivalry  that  the  ministers  of  religion  can  be  stimulated 
to  perform  their  duties  with  a  necessar};^  zeal ;  or  that 
nothing  but  division  among  the  clergy  can  prevent 
those  dangerous  combinations  whence  hierarchical 
despotism  takes  its  start ;  or  that,  in  religion,  as  well 
as  in  common  affairs,  the  pubhc  is  the  gainer  by  an 
open  market,  and  competition  among  venders. 

All  this  grossness  would  be  true,  if  Christianity  were 
not  true  ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  true,  while  Christianity  is 
treated  and  thought  of  as  little  better  than  other  sys- 
tems of  national  worsbip:  but  each  of  these  pretences 
is  impiously  false  when  made  to  attach  to  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  Scriptures.  That  is  only  half  believed 
which  is  believed  as  the  alternative  in  a  controversy  ; 
and  at  presant  all  our  religious  convictions  are  subject 
to  a  deduction  of  this  sort.  The  great  principles  of 
the  Gospel,  thought  of  as  the  subjects  of  discord  among 
the  teachers  of  religion,  ore  not  firmly  lodged  in  our 
minds; — nor  in  their  minds.  Conscious  of  this  low- 
ered or  shattered  confidence,  affecting  as  well  the 
teachers  as  the  taught,  the  deficiency  of  genuine  assu- 
rance is  supplied  whence  it  may,  and  various  second- 
ary motives  are  admitted  to  give  their  aid  in  sustaining 
our  profession,  and  in  buoying  up  our  zeal.     But  no 


286  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

such  unworthy  accessories  would  be  needed,  or  indeed 
tolerated,  if  the  genuine  force  of  faith  itself  were  not 
broken  down  by  disputation. 

Fully  we  may  grant  that  those  who  slenderly  be- 
lieve the  great  verities  of  the  Gospel  may  need  to  be 
provoked  to  diligence  in  their  spiritual  functions  by  the 
rivalries  and  jealousies  of  faction  ;  and  certain  it  is 
that  where  high  motives  languish,  the  deficiency  may 
be  supplied  by  the  personal  ambition  of  those  who  are 
striving  to  outshine  competitors.  It  is  also  true,  while 
our  church  politics  on  the  one  side  are  purely  demo- 
cratic, and  on  the  other  side  are  purely  hierarchical, 
that  faction  among  the  ministers  of  religion  operates 
as  a  preservative  against  both  popular  and  clerical 
tyranny.  But  none  of  these  degrading  precautions 
or  secular  and  vulgar  incentives  would  find  place,  if 
once  the  paramount  and  elevating  motives  of  Chris- 
tianity took  full  effect.  It  is  nothing  but  faction  itself 
that  renders  the  impulses  deriv^ed  from  faction  need- 
ful. Faction  laid  aside,  and  we  should  no  more  want 
the  artificial  stimulus  it  may  supply.  Their  divisions 
among  themselves  discarded,  and  the  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  would  instantly  stand  possessed  of  an  autho- 
rity that  would  neither  ask  extrinsic  aids,  nor  need 
humiliating  counteractions.  Little  can  be  hoped  for 
in  relation  to  Christianit}^,  until  its  ministers  remove 
from  themselves  the  dishonour  of  their  feuds. 

It  ought  not  perhaps  to  be  deemed  proper  to  look  at 
subjects  of  this  serious  sort,  even  for  a  moment,  in  the 
light  of  wordly  prudence  ;  but  if  this  might  be  per- 
mitted, one  must  be  amazed  at  that  want  of  discern- 
ment of  their  common  credit  and  interest,  as  an 
ORDER,  which  allows  the  ministers  of  religion  so  to 
divide  and  to  subdivide  their  corporate  strength.  And 
never  have  such  divisions  been  more  inexpedient  or 
dangerous  than  at  the  present  moment,  when  the 
democratic  element,  throughout  the  social  system,  is 
gaining  rapidly  upon  all  powers  of  government  and 


DEPRESSION   OF    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.     287 

principles  of  authority ;  when  legitimate  feehngs  of 
reverence,  along  with  questionable  prejudices,  are  dis- 
appearing ;  and  when  sentiment  of  almost  every 
kind  is  becoming  faint  and  feeble.  At  such  a  time 
the  clerical  influence  must  be  regarded  as  standing 
exposed  to  extreme  peril :  what  then  is  likely  to  be  its 
fate  if  it  be  internally  broken  by  disagreements,  and 
alienated,  part  from  part,  by  fixed  aversions  ?  How 
are  those  to  defend  their  common  prerogatives  who 
will  not  recognize  each  other  as  claimants  of  the  joint 
privilege,  or  even  meet  under  the  same  roof? 

But  let  these  inferior  and  secular  considerations  be 
altogether  dismissed.  Surely  those  must  have  a  faint 
sense  of  their  responsibility  who  can  think  themselves 
free  to  indulge  their  resentments,  to  entertain  their 
prejudices,  and  to  adhere  to  their  bigotry — at  the  peril 
of  the  salvation  of  mankind.  Yet  it  is  the  factions,  and 
the  jealousy>  and  the  animosities,  of  the  ministers  of 
Christianity,  that  at  the  present  moment  is  sealing  the 
perdition  of  the  world.  It  is  this  that  is  condemning 
the  millions  of  our  British  population  to  ignorance  and 
atheism  :  it  is  this  that  is  snatching  from  us  the  lately 
entertained  hope  of  the  conversion  of  Mohammedans 
and  Pagans  :  it  is  this  that  is  scattering  the  sighs  and 
prayers  of  the  Church  for  the  prevalence  of  truth  and 
goodness  :  it  is  this — it  is  the  disgraceful,  the  ground- 
less, and  the  obstinate  discords  of  the  ministers  of 
religion,  that  now  baffles  the  benevolence  of  Heaven, 
and  throws  the  wretched  human  family  forward  upon 
another  cycle  of  satanic  illusion.  The  methods  of 
the  Divine  government,  inscrutable  as  they  are  for  the 
most  part,  yet  make  themselves  legible,  very  often,  in 
the  terrible  retributions  they  involve.  So  it  may  prove 
in  the  present  instance.  Every  sort  of  motive  and 
incidental  advantage  has,  during  the  current  period, 
combined  to  invite  a  reconsideration,  and  an  abandon- 
ment of  our  hereditary  religious  divisions.  This  has 
been  the  Lord's  special  call  to  his  ministers  of  the  pre- 


288  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

sent  age.  But  it  has  not  been  listened  to  ;  it  has  been 
heard — and  contemned.  Yet  the  guilty  will  go  in 
peace  to  their  graves,  and  the  pubhc  punishment  be 
reserved  to  descend  with  ruin  upon  the  heads  of  their 
less  culpable  successors.  Let  it  be  believed  that,  in 
the  actual  tendency  of  opinions  throughout  Europe, 
and  not  less  so  in  England,  the  clerical  institute  and 
order  is  altogether  in  jeopardy.  Weakened  a  little 
more,  and  disgraced  a  little  more  by  internal  discords, 
and  it  may  be  trampled  under  foot  by  its  adversaries. 

At  what  cost  was  it  that  the  clergy  of  the  third  cen- 
tury promoted  superstition,  and  pursued  their  selfish 
ends?  or  at  what  cost  did  those  of  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries  bear  down,  and  put  to  silence,  the  few  re- 
monstrants who  called  upon  them  to  return  to  apostolic 
simplicity? — it  was  at  the  cost  to  the  world  of  the- 
delusions  and  corruptions  of  twelve  hundred  years. 
Heaven  did  not  interpose  to  stop  the  natural  course  of 
evil.  The  Church  was  left  to  go  on  in  the  path  it  had 
chosen :  the  clergy  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  their  treason 
against  their  Lord  :  Judas  held  his  thirty  pieces  of 
silver,  and  lioted  without  remorse  in  his  gains.  The 
treason  of  our  own  times  is  of  a  different  sort ;  but  we 
know  not  that  it  is  less  pernicious  ;  and  assuredly  it  is 
aggravated  by  a  more  abundant  knowledge  of  right 
and  wrong;  nor  is  there  any  ground  of  just  confidence 
that  its  proper  consequences  will  be  averted  by  extraor- 
dinary interpositions  of  Divine  power  and  mercy. 

Tlie  part  of  the  junior  members  of  the  clerical  or- 
der (of  all  communions)  is  to  convince  themselves  of 
the  error  of  their  fathers  in  this  behalf,  and  to  resolve 
that,  so  soon  as  they  come  upon  the  stage  of  public 
life,  they  will  remove  the  unwarrantable  and  perni- 
cious discords  that  have  so  long  stayed  the  course  of 
Christianity,  and  brought  its  ministers  into  contempt. 
Union,  if  once  cordially  intended  and  promoted,  would 
not  be  obstructed  by  any  serious  obstacles :  the  diffi- 
culties that  stand  in  its  way  would  appear  to  be  what 


DEPRESSION  O^  THE  CLERICAL  ORDER.      2$^ 

they  are,  trivial  pretexts  only,  or  misunderstandings 
which  good  sense  and  charity  would  presently  sur- 
mount. So  far  as  the  present  pleas  of  faction  aie  of  a 
political  kind,  they  must  at  once  be  condemned  as  im- 
piously criminal :  so  far  as  they  relate  to  diversities  of 
usage  or  opinion  in  worship  and  government,  a  bet- 
ter understood  principle  of  church  polity  and  commu- 
nion, together  with  that  sentiment  of  love  and  forbear- 
ance which  the  Gospel  supplies  and  demands,  would 
secure  to  every  man  his  personal  persuasion,  without 
allowing  him  to  break  company  with  his  brethren  ; 
and  so  far  as  our  parties  take  their  orio^in  from  theo- 
logical disagreements,  a  pious  and  diligent  prosecution 
of  biblical  interpretation,  such  as  is  at  present  in  pro- 
gress— biblical  interpretation  opposed  to  the  dialectic 
and  the  metaphysic  method  of  compacting  systems, 
would  soon  bring  into  substantial  accordance  all  sin- 
cere men.  In  one  word,  a  restored  manliness  of  feel- 
ing among  religious  folks — a  renovated  good  sense, 
and,  above  all,  an  invigorated  piety  and  profound  con- 
viction of  the  truth  of  the  religion  we  profess,  would 
dispel,  as  in  an  instant,  the  shame  and  folly  of  our  fac- 
tions. 

The  above-named  heavy  disparagements,  under 
which  the  influence  of  the  ministers  of  religion  is  at 
present  labouring,  attach  in  common,  and  nearly  in 
equal  degrees,  to  the  clergy  of  all  parties.  There  re- 
mains however  to  be  mentioned  certain  causes  of  de- 
pression which  specially  affect  the  ministers  of  different 
communions.  The  most  considerable  of  these  have, 
in  the  preceding  Sections,  been  cursorily  adverted  to, 
but  it  is  proper  here  distinctly  to  bring  them  forward  ; 
yet  a  copious  argument  on  subjects  so  familiar  cannot 
be  necessary  ;  nor  d  ;es  the  author  intend  to  take  into 
account  certain  minute  diversities,  that  distinguish  our 
various  denominations. 

The  Wesleyan  Methodists  and  Moravians  excepted, 
the  great  body  of  our  English  Dissenters  have  fallen 
25 


290  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

from  Presbyterianism  to  Congregationalism,  and  in 
consequence  of  renovated  party  feelings,  have  been  led 
of  late  to  defend  that  form  of  government  with  warmth. 
At  the  very  same  time  the  evils  and  impracticability 
of  this  system  have  been  so  strongly,  though  silently, 
felt,  as  that  several  important  deviations  from  it  have 
been  attempted.  In  truth,  v.henever  Christianity  is 
in  an  expanding  state,  a  polity  essentially  (though  not 
by  name)  episcopal,  takes  place ;  as  for  example,  in 
missionary  stations,  and  at  hoirie  too,  where  a  pastor 
is  of  episcopal  character,  and  is  eminently  assiduous 
and  zealous,  so  as  to  extend  his  labours  beyond  the 
walls  of  his  chapel.  The  very  pattern  of  primitive 
episcopacy  might  be  pointed  to  in  some  of  our  rural 
distiicts,  wdiere  a  mother  congregational  Church  has, 
under  the  laborious  care  of  its  pastor,  surrounded  itself 
with  dependant  chapels,  scattered  over  a  district  of 
seven  or  ten  miles  diameter.  All  that  is  wanting  in 
such  cases  is  ingenuousiiess  enough  not  to  inveigh 
against  the  nanie— bishop,  while  episcopacy  is  actually 
used. 

Again  ;  conscious  of  the  fault  of  their  principles,  in- 
dividuals among  the  congregational  dissenters  have 
laboured,  time  after  time,  to  establish  some  sort  of  or- 
ganization of  the  body,  for  the  management  of  their 
common  interests.  But  neither  ministers  nor  people, 
generally,  are  as  yet  prepared  to  yield  what  is  indis- 
pensable to  the  rendering  such  unions — unions  in- 
deed, or  for  making  them  effective,  in  any  considerable 
degree.  Beside,  it  is  little  more  than  the  political  well- 
being  of  the  body  that  could  come  under  the  cogni- 
zance of  a  uietropolitan  committee  ;  and  even  in  rela- 
lation  to  these,  wide  disagreements  prevent  the  con- 
centration of  the  will  of  tlie  bod}^  The  very  princi- 
ple of  these  communities  repels  organization,  and  so 
strong  a  feeling  of  jealousy  tovvard  every  species  of  e.r- 
tended  authority  jjervades  them,  tliat  no  sooner  is  any 
scheme  advanced  which  might  ripen  into  an  efficient 


DEPRESSION  OF  THE  CLERICAL  ORDER.       291 

general  government,  than  it  draws  upon  itself  univer- 
sal dislike. 

Considered  in  its  relation  to  the  pastors,  individually, 
the  congregational  system  is,  in  one  word — the  peo- 
ple's polity,  framed  or  adhered  to,  for  the  purpose  of 
circumscribing  clerical  power  within  the  narrowest 
possible  limits,  and  of  absolutely  exxluding  any  exer- 
tions of  authority,  such  as  the  high  English  ten»per 
could  not  brook.  The  minister  of  the  meeting-house 
or  chapel  is — one  against  all.  His  neighbouring 
brethren  may  listen  in  sympathy  to  his  complaints, 
but  they  can  seldom  yield  him  succour  :  to  attempt  to 
interfere  miglit  be  to  dislodge  liim  at  once  from  his  po- 
sition. No  adjustment  of  ecclesiastical  powers  can 
leave  a  smaller  balance  in  the  hands  of  the  pastor. 

The  instances  that  would  probably  be  pointed  to  in 
proof  that  these  averments  are  only  theoretically  true, 
and  not  practically  so,  we  should  single  out  as  really 
confirmatory  of  them.  It  is  a  universal  principle  that, 
to  abridge  excessively  the  powers  of  a  ruler,  is  to  place 
him  under  a  sort  of  necessity  to  become  a  despot. 
Feeling  that  the  prerogatives  formerly  assigned  to  him 
are  altogether  insufficient  for  the  free  and  beneficial 
discharge  of  his  functions,  no  alternative  is  left  to  him, 
but  either  to  succumb,  and  to  sustain  a  mere  mockery 
of  authority,  or  to  usurp  (we  must  call  it  usurpation) 
such  powers  as  he  can  ;  and  by  personal  address,  or 
by  the  force  of  his  temper,  or  the  momentum  of  his 
talents  and  character,  to  render  himself  absolute. 
Nothing  tends  so  rapidly  to  despotism  as  pure  democ- 
racy. The  cases,  be  they  as  many  as  they  may,  in 
which  congregational  ministers  exercise  a  real  and  un- 
restrained power,  concur  along  Vv^ith  the  frequent  cases 
of  an  opposite  sort,  in  which  the  minister  is  the  crea- 
ture of  the  people,  and  both  support  the  general  asser- 
tion that,  to  insulate  congregations,  and  to  leave  a  sin- 
gle stipendiary  teacher  alone,  to  manage  as  he  can, 
the  popular  will,  is  a  system  that  must  almost  always 


292  SFIRITtTAL    DESTOnSM". 

end,  either  in  compromising  the  liberties  of  the  people^ 
or  in  annihilating  the  independence,  the  salutary 
power,  and  the  personal  comfort,  of  the  minister. 

High-minded  and  faithful  men  (we  use  the  terms 
in  the  best  sense)  and  there  are  many  such  among 
the  Congregational  Dissenters,  may  be  prompted  to 
deny  with  indignation  the  allegation  of  their  infelici- 
tous position.  Such  should  however,  as  well  in  jus- 
tice to  themselves,  as  to  their  own  and  other  bodies, 
consider,  not  so  much  their  particular  and  exclusive 
case,  but  rather  that  of  the  many  among  their  breth- 
ren, less  energetic  in  temperament,  less  skilled  in  the 
arts  of  government,  and  less  advantaged  by  talents,  or 
perhaps  by  property,  than  themselves.  And  another, 
and  a  more  recondite  inquiry  should  also  be  made, 
concerning  the  secret,  silent,  and  universal  operation  of 
the  popular  will,  through  a  course  of  time,  over  theo- 
logical systems,  and  over  moral  principles  and  senti- 
ments, as  taught  from  the  pulpit,  and  as  carried  into 
effect  upon  the  people.  Men  are  not  always  conscious 
of  how  far  they  have  been  carried  from  their  suppos- 
ed longitude,  by  a  tranquil  current,  into  the  course  of 
which  they  have  steered. 

The  eagerness  of  congregational  misisters  in  de- 
fending a  system  so  disparaging  to  themselves,  and 
so  incompatible  with  the  dignity,  security,  and  sereni- 
ty, proper  to  their  office,  may  seem  a  riddle  to  by-stand- 
ers  :  it  is  however  susceptible  of  some  explication. 
The  events  of  the  time  have  thrown  all  parties  upon  a 
partizan-like  assertion  of  their  peculiarities  ;  and  it  has 
been  felt  that  any  show  of  misgiving  or  doubt,  as  ta 
sectarian  principles,  would  be  caught  at  and  unfairly 
used  by  opponents.  Besides,  it  is  \vell  understood 
that  the  dissenting  laity,  generally,  are  as  far  as  possi- 
ble from  being  in  a  mood  to  relinquish  any  portion 
of  their  acquired  sovereignty,  and  would  abandon  tlie 
most  distinguished  of  their  preachers  who  should  open- 
ly controvert  popular  doctrines.     Nor  ought  we  to 


DEPRESSION  OF  THE  CLERICAL  ORDER.       293 

leave  out  of  tlie  account  the  unfeigned  convictions  of 
many,  perhaps  of  most,  of  these  respectable  men,  who 
have  persuaded  themselves,  or  have  been  persuaded, 
that  their  poHty  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  the 
apostolic  churches.*  Having  had  the  baronial  prelacy 
of  the  middle  ages  to  contend  with,  and  having  fallen 
into  the  almost  universal  error  of  fighting  for  and 
against  names,  they  have  believed  themselves  to  oc- 
cupy an  impregnable  position,  because  they  have  seen 
their  opponents  standing  in  one  that  is  indefensible. 
It  has  been  the  misfortune  moreover  of  the  dissenting 
clergy,  to  derive  their  knowledge  on  ecclesiastical  ques- 
tions much  more  from  our  English  reformation-writers, 
and  from  their  own  puritan  and  non-comformist  di- 
vines, than  from  original  sources.  Very  few  of  them, 
and  manifestly  not  those  who  at  present  figure  in  ec- 
clesiastical polemics,  are  familiarly  conversant  with  the 
Greek  and  Latin  Church  writers.  The  diffusion 
among  them  of  this  sort  of  learning  (proper  as  it  is  to 
a  divine)  would  infallibly  lead  to  some  considerable 
modifications  of  opinion.  Unhappily,  at  present,  the 
prejudice  prevails  which  prevents  its  being  seen  that 
ancient  books,  perhaps  intrinsically  undeserving  of  pe- 
rusal, may  nevertheless  claim  attention,  in  a  perempto- 
ry manner,  as  the  sources  and  materials  of  history. 
Uninformed  of  the  history  of  Christianity,  we  are  the 
creatures  of  that  recension  of  Christianity  which  hap- 
pens to  be  current  in  our  times. 

It  is  always  extremaly  difficult  to  state  the  defects  of 
religious  systems  without  conveying,  to  those  who  are 
uninformed  in  such  matters,  an  injurious  or  an  exag- 
gerated impression  of  facts.  The  author,  in  this  in- 
stance, formally  cautions  the  general  reader  against 
the  misinterpretations  or  extensions  to  which  his  aver- 
ments may  be  open.  He  would  commit  his  pages  to 
the  flames,  much  rather  than  seem  to  associate  him- 

♦  See  Appendix. 
25* 


294  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

self  vvilh  the  virulent  calumniators  of  the  Dissenter?, 
He  well  knows  the  Dissenters  ; — he  knows  thatChristi- 
anity  is  among  them  in  an  efficacious  form ;  he  knows 
their  zeal,  their  abundant  labours  for  the  promotion  of 
the  Gospel,  their  disinterestedness,  their  liberality  (un- 
matched and  unlimited)  and  their  private  and  personal 
worth  and  piety  ;  and  although  they  may  scout  his 
praise,  he  will  still  praise  them.  But  their  opposition  to 
the  Established  Church  has  deeply  injured  them  ; — it 
has  set  them  wrong,  very  far,  in  polity  and  principles;  it 
has  infected  them  in  no  small  degree,  with  a  politico-reli- 
gious fanaticism  ;  and  especially  it  has  fixed  them,  al- 
most universally,  in  a  blind  confidence  of  being,  on  all 
points,  "  in  the  right,"  a  confidence  which  precludes  a 
modest  and  wise  consideration  of  principles,  and  leaves 
scarcely  a  hope  of  their  entertaining  those  serious  and 
momentous  inquiries  concerning  the  general  eonditioQ 
of  our  modern  Christianity,  which  are  now  called  for. 
But  we  must  not  pass  on  without  noting,  and  fully 
admitting,  that  material  alleviation  of  the  evils  of  Con- 
gregationalism which  has  incidentally  resulted  from 
modern  missionary  exertions,  of  the  several  dissident 
communions.  The  various  evangelic  schemes  and 
labours  which  have  been  on  foot  these  last  forty  years, 
and  especially  the  last  twenty  years,  have  in  fact  ope- 
rated to  give  the  dissenting  clergy  a  corporate  exist- 
ence, and  to  secure  for  them,  in  relation  to  their  con- 
gregations, strength  and  importance,  both  individually 
and  as  an  order.  The  great  movements  to  which 
Christian  zeal  has  given  rise,  place  the  ministers  be- 
fore their  flocks  in  a  position  of  disinterested  exertion, 
and  self-denying  labour,  such  as  stimulates  affection, 
and  secures  respect  ?  in  a  word,  augments  their  proper 
influence.  These  enterprizes,  moreover,  involve  mea- 
sures, private  and  public,  which  induce  habits  of  busi- 
ness and  government,  habits  applicable  to  other  pur- 
poses, and  highly  important  to  the  pastoral  character. 
Again,  (nor  is  this  of  least  account,)  our  modern 


DEPRESSION    OF    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.      295 

evangelic  societies  bring  the  pastors  into  frequent  con- 
sultation among  thennselves.  or  in  conjunction  with 
the  most  resjiectable  of  the  laity.  In  some  degree, 
therefore,  Congregationalism  is  Congregationalism  no 
longer.  Ministers  are  now  a  body  ;  they  work  in 
with  extensive  organizations ;  they  are  members  of 
broad  systems  of  government ;  they  go  and  come  from 
their  spheres  of  labour  with  hearts  relieved  of  the 
pressure  of  private  cares,  by  the  excitement  of  public 
cares.  They  are  not,  as  once  they  were,  the  spirit-bro- 
ken and  deplorable  anchorets  of  the  study  and  the  pul- 
pit. They  are  of  more  importance  at  home,  and  of 
more  importance  abroad,  than  were  their  predecessors. 
They  have  made  proof,  in  a  signal  and  peculiar  man- 
ner, of  the  truth  of  the  axiom — that  "  Mercy  is  twice 
blessed."  The  missionary  spirit,  and  its  practices  and 
movements,  have  redeemed  congregational  dissent 
from  decay  or  extinction  ;  and  have  brought  to  bear 
upon  it  a  corrective,  so  efficacious,  as  almost  to  hide  its 
capital  faults.  In  the  beneficial  change  that  has  thus 
taken  place,  the  congregational  laity  have  not  indeed 
relinquished  any  power  ;  but  their  clergy  from  a  for- 
eign source,  have  acquired  power,  and  so  the  balance 
is  a  little  righted. 

Nevertheless,  this  incidental  remedy  falls  very  short 
of  those  measures  that  are  requisite  for  placing  dissent- 
ing ministers  in  the  position  which  the  ministers  of 
religion  ought  always  to  occupy,  and  in  which  the 
personal  merits  and  accomplishments  of  many  of 
them  would  well  fit  them  to  stand.  The  same  men 
organized  under  an  episcopal  system  (wisely  balanced 
and  invigorated  by  lay  influence  and  set  free  from  im- 
mediate dependance  upon  single  congregations,  and 
upon  individuals,  would  soon  draw  to  themselves  the 
mass  of  the  population.  Did  but  the  several  denomi- 
nations of  orthodox  Dissenters  understand  their  inter- 
ests, well  enough  to  dismiss  their  internal  disagree- 
ments— to  renounce  Congregationalism,  the  meeting- 


296  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

house  economy,  iti  principle  and  in  fact — and  to 
organize  themselves  throughout  the  country,  not  in- 
deed by  the  medium  of  precarious  and  powerless 
committees,  but  under  a  firm  and  vigorous  ecclesias- 
tical polity — it  might  then  be  superfluous  to  talk  about 
the  reform  of  the  Established  Church  ;  for  the  Estab- 
hshed  Church  must  soon  give  way  before  a  phalanx 
of  this  sort,  even  if  left  in  possession  of  all  her  endow- 
ments. But  this  will  not  happen  :  dissent  is  not  likely 
soon  to  be  otherwise  than  discordant  and  chaotic. 
Our  part  therefore  must  be,  while  careful  not  to  trench 
in  any  manner  upon  the  rights  of  the  sects  to  look  to 
the  Episcopal  Church,  and  to  strive  by  all  calm  and 
reasonable  means,  to  redress  its  most  urgent  faults, 
and  to  secure  for  it  permancy,  and  the  means  of  gra- 
dual amendment  and  extension. 

John  Wesley's  Church  of-Englandism,  and  his  res- 
pect for  episcopal  orders,  involved,  incidentally,  his  ad- 
mirable system  in  an  embarrassment  which  now 
threatens  the  integrity  of  the  whole,  and  is  actually 
dividing  it.  Compelled  in  the  prosecution  of  his  great 
objects,  to  break  away  from  the  reach  of  the  crosier, 
he  nevertheless  refused  to  consider  his  irregular 
preachers  as  clergy :  this  dignity  belonged  onl}^  to 
himself,  and  the  few  of  his  companions  who  had  re- 
ceived a  university  education,  and  episcopal  ordination. 
His  legislative  and  administrative  assembly  therefore, 
the  Conference — was,  in  his  view,  a  mixed  convoca- 
tion of  clergy  and  laity; — the  latter  being  predomi- 
nant in  numbers.  But  this  arbitrary  and  artificial 
distinction — a  mere  canonical  fiction,  necessarily  grew 
fainter  and  fainter  every  year;  and  soon  completely  dis- 
appeared. Yet  the  silent  change  was  of  vital  conse- 
quence ;  for  thenceforward  the  society  fell  into  the  des- 
potic form  of  a  purely  hierarchical  polity.  The 
preachers — the  clergy^  no  longer  pretending  to  call 
themselves  laymen,  managed  affairs,  apart  from,  and 


DEPRESSION    OP    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.      297 

to  the  exclusion  of  the  people.  This  might  last  while 
the  personal  authority  of  several  of  the  venerated  col- 
leagues of  the  founder  was  at  hand  to  check  resistance  ; 
but  the  removal  of  these  respected  men  was  the  signal 
ofrebeUion.  In  the  temper  of  the  present  times,  an 
unmixed  and  irresponsible  hierarchy  will  not  be  en- 
dured. The  Wesleyan  leaders  should  long  ago  have 
discerned  the  growing  danger,  and  have  prevented 
the  schisms  (hat  have  actually  happened,  by  render- 
ing the  Conference  what  Wesley  intended  it  to  be — a 
convocation  of  clergy  and  laity.  Disinterested  specta- 
tors cannot  but  grieve  to  see  a  system,  so  excellent  ori- 
ginally, and  which  has  effected  so  much  good,  break- 
ing up,  and  generating  feud  upon  feue. — scandal  upon 
scandal,  the  consequence  of  which  must  be  a  loss  of 
genuine  influence  over  the  people,  and  a  lowering  of 
the  ministerial  character  in  that  communion.  Sliall 
the  Established  Church,  with  a  noble  and  a  Christian- 
like concession  to  the  circumstances  of  the  times,  em- 
brace Wesleyan  Methodism,  leaving  to  it  its  vitality 
and  its  independence  ;  and  so,  while  it  loses  a  formid- 
able opponent,  gain  an  efficient  ally  ? 

We  do  not  then  find  any  where,  among  the  dissent- 
ing communities,  a  system  susceptible  of  universality, 
or  much  deserving  to  be  thought  of  as  likely  to  super- 
sede the  Episcopal  Church.  Each  of  them  is  attached 
to  certain  prejudices— called  "great  principles,"  which 
keep  them  sectarian  in  practice  and  feeling.  Private 
liberly  and  personal  preferences  are  too  often  set  above 
considerations  of  public  utility  ;  the  necessity  of  conces- 
sion, of  compromise,  and  of  submission  to  authori- 
ty, is  not  admitted  :  especially  the  Christian  duty 
and  solemn  obligation  of  preserving  union,  is  but 
faintly  seen.  The  sin  of  schism  stands  indeed  in 
the  catalogue  of  vices,  for  the  Apostles  have  placed 
it  there ;  but  an  instance  hardly  ever  occurs  in 
which  the  guilt  of  schism  is  allowed  to  be  imputed 


298  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

to  separatists.  Any  reason  is  deemed  reason  enough 
for  splitting-  a  society,  and  for  founding  a  rival 
Church  under  the  eaves  of  the  mother  Chapel. 
Congregationalism  puts  forth  its  shoots  with  a  too 
ready  exuberance ;  and  our  country  towns  in  very 
many  instances,  present,  what  we  are  required  to 
believe,  is  the  apostolic  spectacle  of  Christian  societies, 
within  gun-shot  of  each  other,  and  differing  in  no- 
thing but  their  grudges,  yet  preserving  little  or  no 
fellowship.  Bodies  acting  upon  principles  of  this 
sort  have  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  Christian  order. 
The  Established  Church  is  deformed  indeed  by 
many  blemishes,  and  urgently  needs  revision ;  yet 
it  may  become  the  national  form  of  Christianity. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  treating  of  Church  Reform; 
what  belongs  to  the  completion  of  our  present  argu- 
ment is  briefly  and  plainly  to  state  those  special  dis- 
paragements under  which  the  clergy  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  are  now  labouring. 

We  have  already  adverted  to  that  fatal  surrender 
of  its  spiritual  prerogatives  to  the  court,  which  the 
Protestant  clergy  made  in  their  season  of  need. 
Most  of  the  disparagements  we  here  name  are  the 
consequences  of  that  false  step — might  we  call  ittrea^ 
son  /  Combined  with  the  principles  and  the  prac- 
tices of  lay  spoliation,  and  the  shameless  abuses  that 
have  grown  out  of  the  custom  of  patronage,  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  Episcopal  Church  to  secular  control 
presses  upon  every  clergyman  with  a  weight  that  ex- 
ceedingly diminishes  the  influence  his  personal  merits 
would  command. 

The  people  will  not,  do  not  see  it ;  nay,  the  clergy 
themselves  do  not  alvva3^s  or  generally  feel  it,  that  the 
English  Episcopal  Clergy  are  under  the  foot  of  lay 
despotism,  and  are  the  victims  of  aristocratic  rapacity. 
But  in  the  popular  eye  the  clergy  bear  the  opprobrium 
of  these  usurpations.     Acquiescing  in  them,  and  im- 


DEPRESSION    OF    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.       299 

mediately  benefitted,  in  single  instances,  by  the  exer- 
cise of  these  encroachments,  they  are  regarded  as  the 
prime  parties  in  the  wrong,  which,  in  reaUty,  is  Bene- 
ficial, not  to  the  clergy  at  large,  but  to  secular  men 
in  office,  and  to  the  aristocracy. 

Nothing  proper  to  a  church-and-state  system  de- 
mands the  subserviency  of  the  Church  to  the  Stale; 
much  less  an  obsequious  dependance  of  the  former, 
from  day  to  day,  upon  the  ever-changing  personages 
of  tlie  administration.  Would  the  Church  lose  power, 
or  «'a//i  it,  by  resenting  this  humiliation?  Unques- 
tionably gain  power  ;  and  not  merely  gain  it  for  the 
episcopal  order,  but  for  every  incumbent  and  curate, 
in  liis  private  sphere,  throughout  the  land.  The 
people  would  at  once  see  their  ministers  in  a  new 
ligbt ;  and  if,  at  the  same  time,  the  glaring  abuses  of 
patronage  were  corrected,  and  the  whole  system 
brought  under  the  operation  of  a  gradual  amendment, 
such  as  should  concede  something  to  the  people,  and 
absolutely  exclude  the  merchandize  of  souls — (he 
people  would  yield  to  their  ministers  a  cordial  leve- 
rence  and  submission,  at  present  hardly  granted  to  the 
most  euiinent  personal  worth. 

Much  that  is  felt  and  thought  by  the  people,  in  rela- 
tion to  their  ministers,  is  never  uttered,  or  is  not  utteied 
by  the  discreet  and  moderate,  whose  opinions  deserve 
respect ;  and  of  that  which  is  uttered,  a  very  small 
portion  at  any  time  reaches  the  ears  of  the  parties  con- 
cerned. If  the  heavily  beneficed  pluralist — we  will 
stippose  him  mainly  well-intentioned  and  respectable 
(in  a  low  sense  of  the  terms)  could  but,  as  he  makes 
iiis  way,  on  a  Sunday  morning,  to  the  desk,  penetrate 
the  bosoms  of  his  flock,  and  read  the  involuntary 
thoughts,  not  of  the  profligate  and  impudent,  nor  of 
the  illiberal  and  vulgar,  but  of  the  intelligent  and 
right-minded  of  his  parishioners,  he  would  hide  his 
face  in  his  sleeve,  or  shrink  out  of  view,  never  again 


300  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM* 

to  meet  the  glance  of  his  silent  reprovers.  While  cer- 
tain passages  of  Scripture  are  on  the  iips  of  the  minis- 
ter, how  pungent  a  feeling  of  his  inconsistency  per- 
vades all  minds  !  Even  children,  if  acquainted  with 
facts,  are  alive  to  the  enormity  of  the  oifence  of  him, 
who,  calling  himself  Christ's  servant,  and  professing 
to  deny  himself  daily,  and  to  take  up  his  cross,  and 
solemnly  renouncing  the  love  of  this  world,  and  the 
eagerness  of  gain,  nevertheless  loads  himself,  to  suffo- 
cation, with  unearned  church  emoluments ;  and  trails 
after  hi  in,  as  he  goes,  a  long  purse,  crammed  with  the 
price  of  souls. 

A  minister  of  the  Gospel  can  labour  under  no  disad- 
vantage heavier  than  that  of  an  imputation  of  being 
mainly  impelled  by  molives  of  cupidity  and  worldly 
ambition.  This  disgrace  would  be  fatal  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  highest  talents,  and  the  most  laborious 
zeal :  how  fatal  then  is  it  to  the  influence  of  those  who 
do  not  belie  it  by  any  zeal,  or  any  spontaneous  la- 
bours !  But  the  incalculable  injury  occasioned  by  such 
instances  of  sacrilegious  selfishness,  is  by  no  means, 
confined  to  the  single  cases  in  which  it  actually  ap- 
pears :  if  it  were  so,  we  might  bear  with  some  patience 
the  particular  wrong  ;  but  in  truth,  these  flagrant  ex- 
amples (too  numerous,  alas)  affect  the  popular  mind 
toward  the  Church  at  large,  and  weigh  against  the 
clergy  in  mass.  The  clergy — at  least  the  beneficed 
portion  of  them,  whether  or  not  they  be  sharers  in  the 
guilty  emoluments,  are  sure  to  have  their  part  in  the 
shame  and  obloquy  thence  arising.  They  are  sup- 
posed to  acquiesce  in  these  enormities  ;  they  are  known 
to  associate  with  their  culprit  brethren  ;  and  they  are 
thought  to  be  themselves  ready  to  accept  a  portion  of 
these  flagitious  gains.  Who  shall  calculate  the  amount 
of  that  deduction  from  the  general  salutary  influence 
of  the  Established  Clergy  which  is  constantly  to  be 
set  off  on  the  score  of  these  abuses  ? 


lDElf»RESSION    OF    THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.       301 

Let  interested  casuists  spend  their  last  grain  of  wit 
in  excusing  pluralities — the  sale  of  advowsons — epis- 
copal translations,  and  those  ecclesiastical  customs,  of 
every  sort,  which  have  one  simple  motive — the  love  of 
money  ; — let  these  apologies  be  carried  a  little  further; 
it  can  be  only  a  little — for  the  common  sense  and 
strong  feeling  of  the  nation  already  condemns  them  4 
Heaven  will  declare  itself  in  anger  against  them; 
and  their  abettors  will  sink  confounded  in  perpetual 
shame. 

The  actual  constitution  of  society,  the  natural  diver- 
sity of  talents  and  accomplishments,  as  well  as  the  dif- 
ferences of  official  rank,  properly  involved  in  a  church 
polity,  render  unavoidable  (nor  should  we  think  it  ab- 
stractedly an  evil)  some  considerable  inequalities  of 
dignity  and  emolument  among  clerical  persons.  But 
there  must  be  a  limit  at  both  extremities  of  the  scale 
of  ecclesiastical  rank  ;  reason,  and  the  spirit  and  rules 
of  the  Gospel,  demand  it.  All  ministers  of  Christ  are, 
spiritually,  on  a  footing  ;  and  they  must  never  so  stand 
relatively  one  to  the  other,  as  to  render  the  cordial  fel- 
lowship of  brethren  impracticable,  or  undesired,  as 
well  by  the  depressed  as  by  the  elevated  members  of 
the  order.  If  alive  to  her  honour  and  interests,  the 
Church  would  take  prompt  means  for  rescuing  any  of 
her  ministers  from  the  cruel  privations  and  humiliat- 
ing embarrassments  of  absolute  poverty.  The  Church 
is  even  more  disgraced  by  the  penury  of  many  of  her 
worthiest  ministers — her  poor  curates,  than  she  is  by 
the  excessive  wealth  of  some  of  her  dignitaries. 

In  a  country  so  opulent  as  this,  no  minister  of 
religion  should  be  suffered  to  want  a  modest  compe- 
tence. This,  when  it  happens  among  the  Dissenters, 
arises  partly  from  the  real  inability  of  the  people,  in 
particular  stations,  to  raise  the  requisite  funds  ;  and 
partly  from  the  want  of  a  better  contrived  system  of 
collection  and  distribution.  The  aggregate  wealth 
26 


302  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM* 

of  the  Dissenters,  properly  taxed,  and  equitably  shared, 
would  afford  respectable  nnaintenance  to  all  their  mi- 
nisters. But  the  poverty  of  the  curates  of  the  Esta- 
blished Church  is  the  sheer  sin  and  shame  of  the 
wealthy  clergy ;  and  as  it  might  readily  be  relieved, 
so  ought  it  to  be  relieved,  by  the  strong  hand  of  the 
law.  This  obviously  is  an  instance  to  which  the 
beneficial  energy  of  a  church-and-state  system  should 
be  made  to  apply. 

The  diffusion  of  Christianity,  in  this  country,  and 
its  hold  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  may  perhaps  be 
obstructed  by  some  recondite  causes,  hitherto  not 
regarded,  or  suspected.  May  these  soon  (if  there  are 
such)  be  discovered  and  removed  !  Meantime,  are 
we  not  solemnly  bound  to  apply  ourselves,  with  a 
religious  assiduity,  and  in  good  faith,  to  the  removing 
of  hindrances  upon  which  no  obscurity  rests,  and  con- 
cerning which  it  cannot  for  a  moment  be  doubted 
that  they  are  sustained  by  secondary  and  immoral 
motives  ?  Do  we,  indeed,  desire  to  see  Christianity 
triumph?  let  then  its  ministers  be  placed  in  a  position 
to  promote  it  without  impediment.  The  Romish 
clergy  commanded  great  advantages;  but  they  wrought 
a  corrupt  system.  The  Protestant  clergy  have  in  their 
hands  a  far  purer  doctrine ;  but  they  are  themselves 
borne  upon  by  various  and  heavy  disparagements. 
We  possess  the  "  sword  of  the  Spirit ;"  but  the  hilt  has 
fallen  from  the  blade,  and  the  heavenly  weapon  is  of 
little  efficacy  in  our  hands. 

Our  various  evangelizing  societies  declare  our  zeal, 
and  this  zeal  is  unquestionably  sincere,  as  well  as  libe- 
ral;  but  it  wants  consistency;  it  wants  reason  and 
CONSCIENCE.  We  are  prompt  to  save  heathens  ;  but 
will  not  listen  with  humility  or  patience  to  the  re- 
hearsal of  our  own  faults.  Christianity,  w^e  know, 
can  be  promoted  with  effect,  only  by  those  w^ho  tiiem- 


DEPRESSION   OF   THE    CLERICAL    ORDER.     303 

selves  are  governed  by  its  motives,  who,  in  a  word, 
fear  God,  and  hate  contention  and  covetonsness,  and 
who  meekly  consider  their  own  ways,  and  turn  their 
feet  into  the  path  of  truth.  This,  then,  should  be  the 
beginning  of  missionary  enterprizes.  The  reform  of 
our  domestic  Christianity  is  the  work  we  are  bound  to 
set  about  when  we. would  convert  the  world. 


SECTION  X. 


GENERAL    INFERENCES. 


Genuine  piety  has  existed  under  aliTiost  the  worst 
forms  of  Christianity  ;— such  is  the  divine  efficacy  of 
truth,  that  its  vivifying  power  is  hardly  to  be  destroyed 
by  superincumbent  errors.  But  Christianity  does  not 
spread,  except  in  its  purest  state,  and  under  the  most 
favourable  conditions.  The  first  of  these  facts  we  are 
apt  to  lose  sight  of  when  employed  in  reviewing  the 
religious  corruptions  that  have  prevailed  in  ditTerent 
eras.  The  characters  and  the  sentiments  which 
occupy  the  attention  while  making  researches  of  this 
sort,  produce  upon  the  mind,  unless  we  carefully  and 
constantly  guard  against  it,  a  melancholy  impression, 
and  a  false  one  too,  as  if  virtue  and  goodness  had,  at 
certain  times,  entirely  forsaken  the  earth  ;  the  con- 
trary might  be  proved  concerning  even  the  darkest 
ages,  by  abundant  evidence.  The  particular  course 
of  inquiry  pursued  by  the  author,  especially  demands 
a  caution  on  this  head :  lie  would  not  be  always  re- 
peating this  necessary  hint ;  but  yet  would  wish  his 
readers  never  to  forget  it. 

This  same  principle — the  existence  of  genuine  piety 
amid  serious  errors,  is  forgotten,  or  rather  rejected,  by 
certain  illiberal  minds — the  bigots  of  exclusive  eccle- 
siastical hypotheses,  who,  in  maintaining,  that,  "  out  of 
the  Church  there  can  be  no  salvation,"  would  have  us 
understand  that  there  is  none  out  of  their  own,  or 
apart  from  ih^t  jure  divino  pohty  to  which  they  ad- 
here. This  has  been  the  ground  taken  in  every  age 
by  the  Romish  Church,  and  hence  she  has  drawn  the 
reasons  of  her  intolerance.     But  the  same  stern  theo- 


GENERAL    INFERENCES.  305 

retic  pride  has  passed  into  our  Protestant  communions, 
and,  strange  to  say,  is  maintained,  sometimes  openly, 
and  often  indirectly  and  insidiously,  by  staunch 
Churchmen,  in  this  enlightened  age.  "  Episcopacy 
is  a  divine  institution : — the  whole  efficacy  of  the  Gos- 
pel, and  the  saving  virtue  of  its  sacraments,  has  been 
formally  attached  to  this  institution  ;  those  therefore 
who  reject  it,  reject  the  conditions  of  salvation  ;  and 
we  dare  not  tell  them  they  can  be  saved."  In  plain 
words,  all  separatists  from  the  Episcopal  Church,  what- 
ever piety  they  may  seem  to  possess,  are  destined  to 
perdition. 

Vulgar  and  malignant  spirits,  it  is  true,  must  have 
their  food  ;  and  if  we  rend  from  them  one  venomous 
superstition,  they  will  seek  and  soon  find  another. 
Reason  is  not  to  be  addressed  to  beings  of  this  order  ; 
but  there  are  minds  of  a  middle  sort,  which  get  entan- 
gled in  the  same  sophisms,  and  yet  are  capable  of  en- 
tertaining more  charitable  views  ;  and  perhaps  would 
gladly  do  so.  At  the  present  time,  if  we  pass  through 
the  rural,  remote,  and  less  enlightened  districts  of  the 
country,  we  shall  hear  not  a  little  of  this  pernicious 
bigotry,  rung  in  the  ears,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  of 
clownish  farmers  and  peasants,  much  to  their  hurt, 
and  immensely  to  the  injury  of  the  Established  Church, 
by  men  in  many  senses  respectable.  In  cities  and 
large  towns  it  is  very  little  understood  to  how  great  an 
extent  the  Church,  throughout  the  country,  is  putting 
the  whole  of  her  credit  and  future  influence  in  jeopardy, 
by  the  inconsiderate  and  ill-timed  arrogance  of  some  of 
her  clergy.  As  a  means  of  frightening  the  common 
people  from  the  meeting-house,  it  proves  almost  entirely 
unavailing,  wherever  dissent  actually  gets  a  footing  ; 
for  the  people  quickly  learn  to  treat  with  the  contempt 
it  deserves  so  insufiferable  a  want  of  charity.  Episco- 
pal charges,  whatever  topics  they  omit,  ought  to  contain 
pointed  cautions  against  this  mischievous  illiberality. 

Let  those  who  entertain  this  high  church  intole- 
26* 


306  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM, 

tin.  e,  consider  that,  in  the  actual  application  which 
they  must  make  of  it,  the  most  serious  danger  imagin- 
able is  incurred,  and  the  greatest  possible  violence  is 
done  to  the  dictates  of  good  sense,  and  to  the  genuine 
impulses  of  Christian  love.  It  is  no  trivial  offence,  we 
may  be  sure,  and  no  slight  peril,  to  miscall  God^s 
work,  and  Satan's.  This  was,  in  substance,  the  very 
sin  of  the  Pharisees,  which  our  Lord  branded  with  the 
mark  of  unpardonable  blasphemy.  The  bold  bigotry 
that  does  not  hesitate  to  assign  millions  of  Christ's 
humble  disciples  to  perdition,  makes  the  pillars  of 
heaven  tremble.  Better  had  it  been  for  the  man  who 
dares  to  do  so,  that  a  millstone  should  have  been  hung 
aroimd  his  neck,  and  he  cast  into  the  sea. 

We  say,  let  such  arrogant  Churchmen  consider  the 
violence  they  do  to  common  sense,  as  well  as  to  every 
genuine  sentiment.  There  are  certain  affirmations 
which,  though  wholly  destitute  of  evidence,  may  yet 
be  accepted  as  true,  without  surrendering  reason  ;  but 
there  are  others  that  are  to  be  entertained  only  so  long 
as  we  can  force  upon  ourselves  a  sort  of  temporary  in- 
sanity. For  illustration,  let  us  suppose  ourselves  stand- 
ing in  front  of  a  temple  or  palace  ;  and  that  we  are  as- 
sured by  one  who  professes  a  more  than  human 
knowledge  of  the  invisible  constitution  of  things,  that 
each  of  the  columns  of  the  portico,  though  apparently 
nothing  more  than  marble,  and  though  cold  and  hard 
to  the  touch,  is  actually  informed  with  animal  and  ra- 
tional life  ;  that  it  sees,  hears,  feels,  and  thinks,  like 
ourselves  ;  and,  in  a  word,  is  very  man,  while  to  the 
eye,  a  pillar,  and  to  the  touch,  a  stone.  This,  we  say, 
marvellous  as  it  is,  may  be  believed  ;  all  we  want  is  a 
reason  for  giving  so  much  credit  to  our  informant. 
But  now,  let  this  same  person,  emboldened  by  our  sim- 
plicity, in  the  first  instance,  go  on  still  further  to  try 
our  powers  of  faith,  and  to  affirm  that  those  whom  we 
take  to  be  men  and  women,  ascending  the  steps,  and 
entering  the  building,  and  w  hom  we  fancy  we  hear 


GENERAL    INFERENCES.  307 

conversing  one  with  another,  and  with  whom  we  our- 
seh^es  have  just  before  conversed,  are  not,  as  they  seem, 
human  beings,  are  not  living,  are  not  rational ;  but 
are  mere  stones  or  statues,  and  might,  without  con- 
sciousness of  pain,  or  effusion  of  blood,  be  shivered  by 
the  chisel  or  mallet. 

At  this  point,  surely,  the  most  credulous  must  stop, 
leaving  the  mad  only  to  believe.  But  now  this  exam- 
ple has  a  real  analogy  with  the  insensate  intolerance 
of  those,  who,  after  conversing  wiih  Christian  men, 
and  beholding  their  good  works  and  consistency,  and 
after  being  compelled  to  admit  that  they  bear  all  the 
semhlmices  of  piety,  will  yet  call  them  children  of  the 
devil,  and  heirs  of  perdition,  because,  forsooth,  they  are 
out  of  the  pale  of  episcopacy  !  Transubstantiation  is 
a  credible  dogma  ;  but  this  enormity  insults  reason 
quite  as  much  as  it  does  despite  to  pious  benevolence, 
and  actually  breaks  down  the  mind  that  submits  to  it. 
What  can  a  man  be  worth,  either  in  reason  or  in  feel- 
ing, after  he  has  thus  been  trodden  in  the  dust,  and 
made  sport  of  by  bigotry  so  preposterous  ?  It  might 
indeed  seem  altogether  frivolous  to  advert  seriously  to 
extravagances  of  this  sort,  if  it  were  not  very  true  ihat 
they  pervade  the  Church,  and,  under  different  forms 
and  pretexts,  infect  the  clerical  order  to  a  degree  that 
involves  the  Establishment  in  an  extreme  danger. 
Church  Reform  may  help  us,  but  the  Church  must 
look  well  to  herself,  and  purge  out  thoroughly  the  old 
leaven  of  popish  intolerance,  or  no  reform  will  save  her. 
Let  the  common  people,  throughout  the  country,  hear 
Methodists  and  Dissenters  spoken  of  from  the  pulpit, 
frequently  and  freely,  as  Christian  brethren  ;  not  a  hat 
the  less  would  be  doffed  in  the  porch  on  a  Sunday  :  on 
the  contrary,  so  nuich  frank  truth  and  charity,  utter- 
ed by  the  clergy,  would  immensely  benefit  the  Church 
at  the  present  crisis.  Whatever  may  be  the  faults  or 
errors  of  the  Separatists,  they  themselves,  very  many 
of  them,  are  Christians,   and   as  good  Christians  as 


308  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

Churchmen ;  and  to  deny  this,  or  to  be  reluctant  to 
confess  it,  is  not  to  injure  tlieni,  but  ourselves  :  nay,  it 
is  an  impudent  impiety,  such  as  a  wise  and  good  man 
must  shudder  to  think  of,  and  will  never  patiently 
bear. 

A  parallel  instance  of  the  revolting  uncharitableness 
that  results  from  a  rigid  adherance  to  an  ecclesiastical 
hypothesis,  presents  itself  among  the  sects :  in  truth, 
the  entire  range  of  church  history,  whether  ancient  or 
modern,  does  not  furnish  a  more  surprising  example  of 
the  force  of  perverted  rehgious  notions  in  holding 
men  (often  kind-hearted  men)  to  a  position  where 
they  can  do  nothing  else  but  set  at  naught  every 
Christian  feeling,  as  well  as  common  sense.  A  safe 
method  of  trying  the  validity  of  any  general  princi- 
ple is  to  carry  it  out  to  its  utmost  extent,  and  then  to 
see  to  what  it  leads  us.  For  example,  we  might 
readily  judge,  in  this  manner,  of  the  principle  which 
impels  a  small  party  of  Christians,  by  no  means  out- 
shining their  brethren  in  solid  Christian  virtues,  or  in 
amiable  and  heavenly  dispositions,  to  shut  themselves 
up  in  their  liltle  munition  and  spiritual  pride — a  city 
walled  up  to  heaven,  and  there  to  unchristianize,  or 
at  least  to  unchurch,  all  Christendom.  This  sort  of 
ultra  sectarism  renders  itself  absolutely  ridiculous,  in 
the  refinement  to  which  it  is  carried  ;  for  not  only  will 
not  these  good  souls  eat  of  the  Lord's  loaf  in  compa- 
ny with  the  unclean  and  unimmersed  commonalty 
of  professed  Christians  ;  but  not  even  with  such  of  the 
immersed  as  may  have  contracted  defilement,  at  any 
time,  by  eating  with  the  unimmersed  !  nay,  they  will 
not  eat  with  any  one  who  does  not  bring  with  him  a 
clean  bill  of  health,  as  having  never,  in  the  act  of 
communion,  come  near  the  sprinkled  !  Instead  of 
arguing,  as  St.  Peter  does,  that  it  is  irreligious  to  call 
any  man  unclean  whom  God  has  cleansed,  by  his 
grace  and  the  knowledge  of  his  truth,  these  immacu- 
late anchorets  find  that,  to  treat  the  mass  of  Christians 


GENERi^L    INFERENCES.  309 

as  Christians,  would  be  to  break  up  their  own  ecclesi- 
astical theory  ;  in  a  word,  they  could  not  doso,  without 
surrendering  the  first  principle  of  their  polity.  Herein 
they  stand  precisely  on  the  ground  taken  by  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  by  high  Church- of-England- 
men  ;  for  many  of  the  pious  and  amiable  members  of 
these  communions,  when  their  better  nature  was  upon 
them,  have  sighed  to  embrace  their  heretical  protes- 
tant  brethren,  and  to  call  Christians,  Christians  •  but 
how  could  it  be  done  ?  not  at  all,  without  excluding 
themselves  from  their  Church,  and  ranging  with  here- 
sy and  schism. 

Few  are  more  to  be  pitied  than  are  those  whose 
consciences  have  become  ensnared  by  mischievous  ab- 
surdities of  this  order.  The  infatuation  scarcely  ad- 
mits a  cure:  there  is  a  certain  degree  of  violence 
which,  if  it  be  once  inidergone  by  the  moral  and  ra- 
tional faculties,  destroys  (niay  we  so  speak  ?)  the  in- 
tellectual organization  :  the  mind  no  more  works  ac- 
cording to  its  natural  mechanism  ;  it  still  lives  and 
heaves  ;  but  is  not  spontaneous.  The  first  impulse  of 
Christian  feelings  is  to  treat  these  instances  of  ecclesi- 
astical lunacy  with  silent  pity ;  and  so  assuredly  we 
should  do,  if  it  were  not  that  errors  so  disgraceful  to 
Christianity,  are  perpetuated,  and  obtruded  upon  the 
world,  and  are  made  in  some  sense  important,  by  the 
misplaced  indulgence  shown  them  by  men  of  sense. 
Apart  from  this  sort  of  countenance  and  support,  di- 
rect or  indirect,  the  "strict  communion"  sect  must  long 
ago  have  ceased  to  be  the  opprobrium  of  the  respectable 
body  in  the  bosom  of  which  it  takes  shelter.  But  that 
body,  in  its  opposition  to  certain  superstitions  of  the  age 
of  Cyprian,  has  rendered  its  testimony  nugatory  by 
the  wild  intolerance  of  its  ecclesiastical  theory.  The 
doctrine  of  the  liberal  party  among  the  Baptists,  is  a 
happy  practical  incoiisistency ^  which  still  leaves 
their  theory  uncorrected. 

But  at  what  cost  is  indulgence  shown  to  the  shame- 


310  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

less  bigotry  of  zealots  ?  at  the  cost  of  the  honour  of 
Christianity — at  the  cost  of  the  perdition  of  thousands 
around  us.  While  Christianity  is  made  odious  and 
ridiculous  by  some,  and  while  others  encourage  those 
who  do  so,  both  parties  wonder  that  their  preaching 
and  teaching,  and  the  distribution  of  the  Scriptures, 
produce  Httle  effect  upon  the  mass  of  mankind.  The 
mass  of  mankind,  let  us  be  assured,  are  gifted  with 
common  sense  ;  they  would  indeed  listen  to  the  Gos- 
pel, and  ever  have  listened  to  it,  when  presented  to 
them  in  its  genuine  dignity  ;  but  they  will  not  be  in- 
duced to  kiss  the  dust  before  monstrous  superstitions, 
and  absurd  intolerance. 

This  most  momentous  principle  Christians  very  im- 
perfectly discern,  that,  although  piety  will  exist  under 
almost  any  pressure  of  errors  and  follies,  Christiani- 
ty ITSELF  WILL  NEVER  SPREAD  whilo  SO  encumbcr- 
ed.  The  modern  missionary  zeal  is  a  strenuous  en- 
deavour on  the  part  of  the  spiritual  Church — an  en- 
deavour thoroughly  sincere  in  its  primary  motive,  and 
in  its  substance  altogether  commendable,  to  contravene 
this  principle,  and  to  carry  the  Gospel  out,  bearing  all 
the  weight  which  the  prejudices  of  ages  have  heaped 
upon  it.  Our  various  sectarian  missionary  societies  are 
now  wresthng  with  Omnipotence  on  this  very  point. 
The  experiment  is  being  tried  whether  the  nations  at 
large  may  be  converted  by  the  unamended  and  discor- 
dant Christianity  which  we  inherit  from  the  Lutheran 
Reformers. 

In  the  privacy  of  Christian  circles,  there  are  mul- 
titudes, who,  with  the  utmost  intensity  of  feeling*, 
and  with  a  zeal  that,  in  Scripture  phrase,  "  eateth 
them  up,"  desire  the  conversion  of  Popish,  Pagan, 
and  Mohammedan  nations,  as  well  as  that  of  their 
irrehgious  countrymen. — Multitudes,  we  say,  who, 
with  alacrity,  would  do  any  thing,  and  surrender 
any  thing,  the  doing  or  the  sacrifice  of  which  might 
promote  the  religious  welfare  of  mankind ;     genuine 


GENERAL    INFERENCES.  311 

philanthropists,  counting  all  things  as  dross  for  Christ. 
But  these  simple-minded  persons  act  only  as  they  are 
led,  informed,  and  reined  in,  by  men  more  politic 
and  cautious  than  themselves ;  by  men,  honest,  in- 
deed, in  their  endeavoiTis  to  spread  Christianity  ;  but 
too  cool  and  keen-sighted  to  pursue  this  great  object 
at  whatever  cost.  They  love  the  Gospel  imfeigned- 
ly,  but  love  it  under  a  condition.  The  form  of 
things  in  which  they  have  been  trained,  and  which, 
as  a  point  of  professional  honour,  they  are  pledged 
to  uphold,  and  especially  in  this  present  season  of 
unsettled  counterpoise  of  parties,  must  be  silently, 
yet  effectually,  taken  care  of.  ''Let  the  Gospel  spread 
— no  damage  being  done  to  us  or  our  polity." 

The  very  same  half-hidden  feeling,  on  the  part 
of  the  foremost  men  of  the  Church,  we  may  find 
examples  of  in  every  age.  And  it  has  been  this 
feeling,  and  this  occult  discretion,  that  have  again 
and  again  turned  off  the  current  that  might  have 
watered  the  nations,  and  made  the  wilderness  to  blos- 
som as  the  rose. 

Allowance  made  for  the  mere  tenacity  of  habits 
and  tastes,  the  feeling  that  has  so  fatally  affected 
the  minds  of  ecclesiastical  leaders,  in  every  age,  and 
which  now,  on  all  hands,  impedes  improvement,  and 
obstructs  the  progress  of  Christianity,  is  this — that  cer- 
tain necessary  reforms  would  derogate  from  the  honours, 
or  invade  the  interests,  of  (he  clerical  order.  Such 
a  fear  may,  indeed,  have  been  no  illusion  when  vast 
powers  and  wealth  were  in  the  keeping  of  the 
Church  ;  but,  in  our  own  times,  the  position  of  the  min- 
isters of  religion,  in  every  communion,  is  on  the  op- 
posite side,  and  Church  Reform  (we  now  apply  the 
phrase,  without  distinction,  to  all  denominations — 
for  all  need  it  alike)  involves,  not  the  reduction,  but 
the  re-instatement  of  the  clerical  order;  not  its  diminu- 
tion, but  its  enlargement,  its  advancement,  its  honour, 
its  just  power,  and  its  independence  of  popular  con- 


312  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

tumacy,  and  of  lay  rapacity.  The  natural  reluctance, 
therefore,  which,  in  the  instance  of  all  corporations, 
civil  and  sacred,  resists  amendment,  is,  at  the  present 
time,  misjudging  and  impolitic.  If  we  look  at  re- 
ligious communities  separately,  or  at  the  Protestant 
Churcli  at  large,  it  is  true  that  every  considerable 
alteration  we  miglit  wish  to  see  effected  would  in- 
volve an  augmentation  of  comfort  and  of  credit  to 
the  ministers  of  religion. 

The  fact  cannot  escape  an  inteUigent  spectator 
of  the  present  critical  struggle  of  religious  parties, 
that  the  crown  of  pre-eminence  hangs  at  the  goal, 
ready  to  be  carried  off  by  that  party,  be  it  whicii  it 
may,  that,  with  a  manly  ingenuousness,  and  honest 
zeal,  and  a  Christian  conscientiousnessj  shall  under- 
take ITS  OWN  REFORM.  Its  reform  in  theology,  in 
modes  of  worship,  and  in  polity.  There  would  be 
little  hazard  in  saying  that  this  prize  might  now 
be  won  even  by  the  least  considerable  of  our  various 
denominations  which  should  resolutely  strive  for  it, 
and  which,  while  its  several  competitors  are  absurdly 
commending  their  peculiar  notions  and  usages,  and 
assailing  those  of  others,  should  unsparingly  examine 
its  own,  and  apply  boldly  the  remedies  which  good 
sense  and  scriptural  principles  suggest.  A  religious 
body  thus  acting,  would  quickly  outstrip  its  rivals, 
would  command  the  respect  of  the  people  at  large, 
would  draw  to  itself  men  of  sense  and  talent  from 
all  parties,  i^nd  soon  would  imbibe  all,  and  embrace 
all. 

If  conjectures  were  admitted  as  to  the  party  most 
likely  (if  any  be  so)  now  to  awaken  itself  to  this 
•honourable  ambition — the  ambition  of  leading  the 
way  in  a  return  to  leason  and  genuine  Christianity, 
it  would  be  necessary  to  exclude  those  who  distin- 
guish themselves  by  a  loudly-uttered  confidence  of 
being  in  the  right  and  of  needing  no  reform.     This, 


GENERAL    INFERENCES.  3l3 

we  cannot  deny,  seems  to  be  too  much  the  temper 
of  the  several  dissenting  bodies.  It  has  so  long 
been  their  part  to  protest  against  certain  glaring 
fliults  in  the  national  Church,  that  it  has  grown 
upon  them  to  think  their  neighbours  utterly  wrong, 
and  themselves,  in  the  same  porportion,  faultless. 
None  so  blind  to  their  own  defects,  as  the  habitual 
reprovers  of  others.  It  has  become  a  sort  of  adage, 
among  the  D lessen ters — "no  acts  of  parliament  pre- 
vent our  reforming  ourselves,  if  reform  were  needed." 
This  consciousness  of  liberty  has  silently  generated 
the  persuasion  that  a  reform,  which  might  at  any 
time  have  been  eflfected,  has  never  been  really  need- 
ed. But  those  who  so  reason,  forget  that  acts  of 
parliament  are  much  more  pliable  things  than  old 
prejudices  ;  and  that  it  is,  at  any  time,  easier  to  ob- 
tain either  the  rescinding  of  statutes,  or  the  enactment 
of  statutes,  than  to  dissipate  vulgar  errors,  to  dissolve 
theological  theories,  or  to  recover  from  the  popular 
grasp  the  lost  and  just  prerogatives  of  authority. 

Meantime,  it  is  certain  that  a  modest  and  hopeful 
consciousness  of  the  necessity  of  various  revisions 
and  reforms  is  entertained  by  the  intelligent  mem- 
bers of  the  Established  Church.  The  cour^--e  of 
events  tends  in  the  same  direction,  and  must  speedily 
place  the  national  hierarchy  on  a  path  where  it  will 
be  much  more  safe  to  advance  spontaneously  and 
courageously,  than  to  stand  or  to  l3e  driven  forward. 
Every  thing  disastrous  may  be  feared  if  the  Church — 
we  mean  here  tlie  clergy,  will  yield  to  nothing  but  to 
impulses  they  cannot  resist.  Every  thing  happy 
might  be  hoped  for,  if  they  would  anticipate  and 
direct  the  changes  that  are  to  take  place. 

Three  questions  of  pr;ictical  significance  meet  us  in 
connexion  v.'ith  this  mon^entous  subject:  the  first  is — 
Can  the  Church,  with  safety,  be  touched  at  ail  in  the 
way  of  reform  ? — the  second  is  this,  Is  the  present 
position  of  the  Cliurch  such,  that  the  clergy  have 
27 


314  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

much  to  lose,  and  little  to  hope  for,  from  the  changes 
that  are  likely  to  be  effected,  or  the  reverse  ?  and  the 
third,  Shall  these  changes,  if  indeed  they  are  to  be 
effected,  be  thrown  upon  the  discretion  of  the  laity, 
or  be  guided  and  governed  by  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion, ingenuously  giving  their  hearts  and  talents  to 
the  work  ? 

Now  we  must  consider  the  first  of  these  questions 
as  altogether  superseded  by  the  advance  of  public  opin- 
ion, and  by  the  avowed  opinion  and  intention  of 
public  men  of  different  parties.  It  is,  we  say,  su- 
periiuous  to  discuss  the  problem  of  Church  Reform, 
upon  this  preliminary  ground.  The  Church  ivill  be 
touched — whether  it  be  safe  and  wise  to  do  so  or  not. 
It  would  be  well,  indeed,  if  the  forlorn  hope  of  resist- 
ing reform  could  now  be  abandoned  by  those,  who, 
in  clinging  to  this  poor  chance,  forfeit  irretrievably 
their  own  influence  over  the  coming  changes. 

On  the  second  of  the  above  named  questions,  it 
seems  that  much  illusion — an  illusion  natural  to  the 
timid,  prevails.  The  great  and  gradually  induced 
disparagements  under  which  the  protestant  clergy 
of  all  communions  are  suffering,  are  not  duly  consi- 
dered, or  it  \\'ould  be  seen  that  a  new  adjustment  of 
clerical  influence,  effected  in  a  country  where  religion 
has  so  strong  a  hold  upon  the  people,  and  where 
what  is  fair  and  just  is  sure,  at  length,  to  recom- 
mend itself,  is  likely,  not  to  depress,  but  to  elevate 
the  order.  So  far  as  mere  secular  interests  are  con- 
cerned, the  opinion  and  feeling  of  the  sound  part  of 
the  English  people  has  been  very  distinctly  expressed 
to  this  effect — that  the  aggregate  income  of  the 
Church  is  not  excessive,  that  it  shall  not  be  invaded; 
and  that  it  wants  nothing  but  a  more  beneficial  and 
equitable  system  of  distribution.  Then  again,  the 
peculiar  and  critical  position  of  the  Established 
Church,  in  relation  to  the  Separatists,  must  be  very 
obscurely  perceived    by  her    clergy,  or  it   would  be 


GENERAL    INFERENCES.  315 

forcibly  felt  that  the  moiTients  ought  not  to  be  lost 
in  which  it  is  yet  possible  for  them  to  take  the  lead, 
to  regain  pre-eminence,  and  to  occupy  the  only 
ground  that  can  be  safe  to  a  national  Church.  If  the 
Church  does  not  quickly  draw  toward  herself  the 
faltering  hearts  of  the  people,  and  if  she  does  not 
hold  out  to  the  country  cheering  expectations,  some 
one  of  the  dissenting  bodies — or  perhaps  all  combined, 
will  seize  the  advantage,  step  in,  and  teach  the 
established  Church — too  late,  a  lesson  she  does  not 
dream  of.  Separation  having  reached  the  bold 
height  at  which  now  it  stands,  it  would  be  an  unut- 
terable imprudence,  on  the  part  of  the  clergy,  to  show 
to  the  nation  a  sullen  frown,  or  to  bid  public  opinion 
defiance.  Most  true  it  is,  that  Reform,  carried  by  force, 
and  in  resentment  against  clerical  obduracy,  would 
leave  to  the  clergy  a  miserable  prospect  of  progressive 
humiliations. 

But  the  answer  that  is  to  be  given  to  our  second 
question  turns  upon  the  reply  that  must  be  made  to 
the  third — namely,  who  shall  guide  and  govern 
Church  Reform  ?  or,  who  are  to  be  the  architects  and 
the  workmen  in  restoring  the  ecclesiastical  edifice? 
The  clergy  themselves  must  furnish  us  with  a  solu- 
tion of  this  problem.  There  is  not  a  doubt  that,  if 
men  of  their  own  body,  wise,  accomplished,  and  pious 
and  masters  of  public  esteem,  were  to  stand  forward, 
and  to  challenge  the  w-ork  as  their  own,  and  were  to 
give  some  early  and  unquestionable  evidence,  as  well 
of  their  sincerity  as  of  their  skill — there  is  we  say,  no 
doubt,  that  room  would  instantly  be  made  for  them, 
deference  shown  them,  and  a  field  left  to  them  as 
clear  and  as  ample  as  they  could  desire.  What  is  the 
alternative  ? — that  Church  Reform  should  be  concert- 
ed by  secular  men,  and  carried  forward,  as  it  may, 
amid  the  distractions,  and  liable  to  the  interested  mo- 
tives, that  attend  political  measures.  Such  a  reform  . 
may  perhaps  be  beneficial  to  the  country ;  but  rather 


316  SPIRITUAL    DESPOTISM. 

in  a  civil  than  a  religious  sense,  and  whatever  useful 
provisions  it  may  contain,  it  must  on  the  whole,  tend 
to  seal  anew  that  degradation  of  the  liierachy,  as  the 
creature  of  the  State,  which,  in  protestant  countries 
has  already  gone  much  too  far.  It  is  this  very  humili- 
ation which  the  clergy  should  promptly  prevent ;  and 
it  can  be  prevented  in  one  manner  only,  that  is  to  say, 
by  themselves  leading  Reform. — With  the  clergy  it 
now  rests  to  scive  their  order,  and  our  Episcopal, 
Liturgical  and  Endov/ed  Church. 

Whether  it  shall  please  God  to  connect  the  preser- 
vation and  extension  of  Christianity  in  this  country, 
and  at  large,  with  the  re-establishment  of  our  National 
Church,  is  what  none  ought  to  affirm  with  that  con- 
fidence which  has  been  too  common  with  Church- 
men ;  and  it  is  what,  assuredly,  none  should  think 
themselves  at  liberty  to  deny.  The  purposes  and 
intentions  of  Heaven  do  not  come  within  the  range 
of  our  calculations  ;  but  happily  the  course  of  duty 
is  not  at  all  overshadowed  by  the  cloud  that  rests 
upon  the  ways  of  the  Divine  Providence  ;  or  it  is  so 
overshadowed  only  by  our  own  fault,  when  we 
allow  presumptuous  anticipations  of  what  w^e  fondly 
think  God  w^ill  certainly  do,  or  ought  to  do,  to  regu- 
late our  conduct,  in  the  stead  of  the  plain  principles  of 
ectitude  and  prudence. 

Adhering  religiously  and  modestly  to  unquestion- 
able maxims  of  good  sense  and  of  Christian  inte- 
grity, we  can  hardly  be  in  doubt  as  to  the  course  to 
be  pursued  on  the  present  momentous  occasion. 
Men  free  from  factious  motives  will  not  for  a  mo- 
ment entertain  the  thought  of  demolishing,  or  of 
sulfering  to  be  demolished,  our  ecclesiastical  institu- 
tions, on  the  ground  of  any  mere  hypothesis  of 
church  polity.  These  institutions  must  be  fairly 
tried,  and  tried  for  a  length  of  time,  freed  from  abus- 
es and  perversions,  before  we  can  listen  to  the  aver- 


GENERAL    INFERENCES.  31f 

ment   of  theorists — that  tiiey  are  essentially  perni- 
cious. 

On  the  other  side,  we  hold  it  as  certain,  that  none 
but  the  most  infirm,  or  the  most  selfish  and  corrupt, 
will  plead  for  stopping  the  course  of  all  reform.  With 
Bucli,  if  there  be  such,  we  have  nothing  to  do.  On 
the  question,  how  far  shall  reform  proceed?  we  again 
find  relief  from  pressing  perplexities  in  the  safe  rule 
of  following  the  track  of  universal  pubUc  feeling. 
What  all  men  exclaim  against  as  flagitious,  inequit- 
able, and  unchristian,  ought  to  be  removed — for  that 
reason  alone.  Can  a  Church  be  efficient  or  prosper- 
ous, which  is  condemned  and  contemned,  in  many  of 
her  practices,  by  the  mass  of  the  people  ? 

Again,  in  regard  to  the  revision  of  the  forms,  arti- 
cles, and  worship  of  the  Church,  an  adherence  to  ac- 
knowledged rules  of  discretion  might  carry  us  clear  of 
difficulties.  The  question  is  not — Whether  tJds  sys- 
tem of  theology,  or  tliat^  condemns  or  approves  certain 
ambiguous  phrases?  but  it  is  this — Have  certain  phra- 
ees  been  from  ago  to  age,  an  occasion  of  contention 
among  all,  and  of  ofTence  and  distress  to  pious  and 
humble  spirits? — If  so,  remove  them  without  a  scru- 
ple. Nor  can  it  be  difficult  to  fix  the  finger  upon  such 
obnoxious  terms.  Let  none  be  expunged  but  such  as 
have  actually  become  notorious  as  the  text  of  contro- 
versy. We  do  not,  in  these  instances,  listen  to  cap- 
tious and  frivolous  objections  ;  but  to  the  testimony  of 
history  ; — a  testimony  liable  to  uncertainty. 

Once  more,  we  presume  that  practical  and  impar- 
tial men  will  not  hesitate  to  give  their  aid  in  restoring 
to  the  Established  Church  that  Independence,  and 
those  vital  functions,  which  Christianity  demands  for 
her ;  and  without  which  she  will  not  be  able,  hence- 
forth, to  compete  with  communions  possessing  such 
functions  ;  and  which  are  absolutely  necessary  to  pre 
vent  convulsive  and  perilous  reforms,  demanded  at 
27* 


318  SPIRITUAL  DESPOTISM. 

shorter  and  shorter  intervals,  and  always  in  a  louder 
and  still  louder  tone.  Deprived  by  the  progress  of  just 
and  liberal  opinions,  of  that  power  which  at  first  she 
exercised,  after  the  example  of  the  Spiritual  Despotism 
of  the  Papacy,  the  English  Church  is  now,  in  almost 
every  sense  destitute  of  authority,  and  lies  at  the  mer- 
cy of  her  foes — and  of  her  friends.  To  be  qualified 
to  exert  a  more  general  and  beneficial  influence,  the 
Church  must  breathe  with  her  own  lungs,  speak  with 
her  own  mouth,  and  show  the  energy  of  a  pulse  and 
a  heart — her  own. 

This  necessary  restoration  to  her  just  prerogatives 
the  Church  will  not  expect  to  receive  (nor  should  she 
desire  it)  without  at  the  same  time,  admitting  that  due 
leaven  of  popular  influence,  without  which,  in  fact, 
there  can  be  no  vitality  in  any  Church,  and  apart 
from  ^vhich,  church  power  will  never  te  any  thing 
else  but  a  Spiritual  Despotism, 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  IV. 

Page  94. — Very  early  it  was  admitted  that  the  apostolic  writings 
afford  general  principles,  rather  than  formal  enactments  for  the  regu- 
lation of  worship  and  church  government.  Thus,  Tertullian,  little 
more  than  a  century  after  the  death  of  the  apostles,  after  reciting 
various  religious  usages,  generally  prevalent  in  his  time,  says,  '  Ha- 
rum  et  aliarum  ejusmodi  disciplinarum  si  legem  expostules  Scriptu- 
rarum,  nullam  invenies;  traditio  tibi  pretendetur  auctrix,  consuetu- 
do  confirmatrix,  et  fides  observatrix.' — De  Corona.  Unhappily  the 
Church  abused  the  indeterminate  constitution  of  Scripture  in  mat- 
ters of  worship,  by  adding  superstition  to  superstition  without  end. 
This  process  must  certainly  have  commenced  simultaneously  with 
Christianity  itself;  otherwise  it  could  not  have  happened  that  the 
numerous  observances  mentioned  by  Tertullian,  as  generally  preva- 
lent in  his  time,  and  as  already  established  by  lo7xg  custom,  should 
have  come  to  be  so  regarded  throughout  the  Eastern,  Western,  and 
African  Churches.  It  is  more  than  matter  of  curiosity  to  note  Avhat 
these  ceremonies  were :  among  them  we  find,  the  three  immersions 
in  baptism — the  milk  and  honey  of  peace — oblations  for  the  dead, 
and  the  crossing  of  the  forehead  at  every  moment,  on  going  out,  and 
on  returning  home,  in  dressing,  and  putting  on  the  shoes,  at  tlie 
bath,  at  table,  at  lighting  of  lamps,  at  lying  down,  at  sitting,  and,  in 
a  word,  at  every  separate  act  of  common  life.  Those  who  appeal  to 
the  testimony  of  these  early  writers  in  support  of  certain  observan- 
ces, ought  to  admit  it  also  when  urged  in  favour  ofother  usages  equally 
prevalent  in  the  same  age.  Researches  into  Christian  antiquity  are 
indeed  highly  important ;  but  the  fair  result,  we  may  feel  assured, 
will  not  be  to  afford  a  triumph  to  any  one  existing  party  over  others; 
but  rather  a  conviction,  on  all  sides,  of  the  folly  and  sin  of  breaking 
communion  with  our  brethren  on  account  of  practices  or  forms  never 
to  be  authoritatively  determined. 

Page  100. — The  readiness  with  which  baptism  was  adininistered 
by  the  apostles,  and  admission  into  the  society  of  the  faithful  grant- 
ed, stands  on  the  face  of  St.  Luke's  narrative.  A  professed  desire  to 
receive  baptism,  as  a  believer  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  was  the 
sole  quaUfication.  Many,  no  doubt,  thus  entered  the  Church,  quick- 
ly to  be  expelled  from  it,  on  proof  of  their  unworthiness.    We  hear, 


320  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    IV. 

in  the  Acts,  of  no  scrutiny  of  the  heart;  how,  indeed,  should  any 
such  difficult  process  have  been  attended  to,  when  tliousands  were 
initiated  in  a  day?  It  may  not  be  impertinent  here  to  remind  the 
reader  that  the  clause,  which  stands  in  the  received  text,  and  is  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Philip,  as  addressed  to  the  Ethiopian  eunuch — "If 
thou  believest  with  all  thine  heart,  thou  mayest,"  is  deemed,  on  good 
reasons,  to  be  an  interpolation.  As  we  advance  toward  the  second 
and  third  centuries,  we  find  the  process  of  admission  into  the  Church 
to  have  become  continually  more  and  more  complicated,  until,  at 
length,  all  the  pomp  and  mystery,  the  artificial  delays,  and  the  af- 
fected tardiness  that  belonged  to  the  heathen  initiations,  had  been 
transferred  to  the  Christian  Church.  This  one  point  of  the  terms 
and  mode  of  admission  might  be  well  taken  as  a  criterion  ot  religious 
simplicity,  or  of  sophistication — conjoined  always  with  a  reference 
to  the  efficiency  of  discipline  in  the  same  society.  Easy  admission^ 
along  with  easy  discipline,  proves  very  litile  in  favour  of  a  Church. 

Page  103. — Several  of  those  confirmed  disagree^ments  that  now  di- 
Tide  the  Christian  commonwealth,  relate  immediately  to  the  much- 
obscured  question  concerning  the  extension  or  the  restriction  of  ec- 
clesiastical privileges,  as  intended  by  the  apostles.  This  difficulty 
cleared  up,  the  way  would  be  open  for  consolidating  two  or  three  of 
our  parties.  The  Church  of  England,  borne  out  by  the  unquestion- 
able practice  of  the  earliest  tim^s  to  which  existing  evidence  extends, 
takes  the  broadest  ground  ;  but  the  terms  in  which  she  does  so,  in- 
volve almost  the  certainty  of  serious  misunderstandings  on  the  part 
of  the  people;  and  they  demand  revision.  The  testimony  borne  by 
the  Baptists  against  certain  superstitions  of  the  age  of  Cyprian,  has 
failed  to  command  the  respect  to  which,  abstractedly,  it  was  entitled, 
in  consequence  of  the  offensive  dogmatism  of  that  party  in  relation  to 
points  not  now  to  be  decisively  determ.ined  ;  and  especially  have  the 
Baptists  disgusted  men  of  intelligence,  by  the  absurdity  of  attaching 
prime  importance  to  the  sort  of  ablution  which  constitutes  Christian 
Ijaptism,  and  by  the  bigotry  of  the  practices  resulting  from  that  error. 
It  is  as  certain  as  any  thin;^  of  the  kind  can  be,  that  several  modes  of 
performing  the  rite  of  baptism  were  in  use  in  tlae  apostolic  age.  The 
Baptists  would  not  merely  serve  themselves,  but  the  Christian  world 
at  large,  and  in  an  important  manner,  by  frankly  giving  up  their  ill- 
judged  pertinacity  on  the  question  of  immersion.  A  copious  aflfu- 
sion  would  abundantly  satisfy,  not  only  common  sense  and  every 
general  principle  of  analogy,  but  all  the  evidence  which  can  now  be 
adduced  on  the  subject. 

Page  103. — St.  Peter,  who  tells  Christians  that  they  are  universal- 
ly the  members  of  a  "royal  priesthood,"  recognizes,  in  the  same 
breath,  the  function  and  authority  of  the  ruling  and  teaching  elders 
of  the  Church  ;  and  in  giving  to  these  a  caution  against  the  tyrannic 
exercise  of  their  power,  he  plainly  implies  that  power  was  actually 
in  their  hands.  On  the  same  principle,  when  these  elders  are  warned 
not  to  assume  the  episcopal  office  for  "filthy  lucre's  sake,"  we  inevi- 
tably infer  that  these  official  persons  were  th«n  receiving  a  salary  of 


APPENDIX   TO    SECTION    IV.  1^21 

Stipend,  on  account  of  their  services ;  even  as  the  Lord  had  appoint- 
ed. If  not,  what  pertinence  was  there  in  the  admonition?  St.  Peter 
acknowledges  a  governing  class,  or  order,  supported  by  the  contri- 
butions of  the  society.  Of  what  value  then,  in  relation  to  ecclesiasti- 
cal controversies,  is  that  argument  against  the  distinction  between 
clerg)'-  and  laity,  which  has  been  drawn  from  the  priestly  dignity  of 
(dl  believers  ?  Neander's  learned  book  will  be  read  with  respectful 
attention ;  but  it  is  every  where  indistinct,  and  unsatisfactory  in 


Page  105. — Notliing  can  be  more  full  or  conclusive  than  the  in- 
ferences resulting  from  St.  Paul's  expostulation  with  the  Corinthi- 
ans, 1  Cor.  ix.,  on  the  subject  of  his  own  behaviour  among  them  in 
pecuniary  matters.  Impelled  by  special  and  personal  motives,  he 
had  abstained  from  using  for  his  own  benefit  an  unquestionable  au- 
thority, or  official  right,  to  demand  maintenance,  as  a  person  devoted 
to  the  religious  public  service  of  the  Church.  To  this  maintenance 
all  such  persons  were  entitled,  not  merely  on  grounds  of  general 
equity,  but  by  the  Lord's  formal  enactment ;  and  this  enactment  is, 
moreover,  explicitly  referred  to  the  analogy  of  the  Jewish  sacerdotal 
institute.  In  latter  times,  the  mode  of  applying  this  analogy  might 
be  open  to  objection  ;  but  how  can  we  consider  the  employment  of  it 
as  altogether  unwarrantable,  when  we  find  it  thus  suggested  to  us 
by  the  inspired  apostle?  The  clerical  institution,  that  is  to  say,  the 
Betting  apart  an  order  of  men  as  religious  teachers  and  rulers,  involv- 
ing tlieir  i-ight  of  maintenance,  is  the  best  defined  and  most  clearly 
established  of  all  the  external  parts  of  Christianity. 

Page  107. — The  silence  of  the  apostles  on  certain  important  sul> 
jects,  such  for  example  as  slavery  and  polygamy,  and  their  indistinct 
reference  to  the  observance  of  a  seventh  day,  is  of  a  piece  with  theif 
leaving  the  maintenance  of  the  ministers  of  religion  to  be  adjusted  by 
communities  in  the  mode  which  circumstances  might  render  expedi- 
ent. That  they  say  nothing  of  endowmen's,  or  of  national  estaljlish- 
ments,  aflfords  no  presumption  whatever  against  any  such  means  or 
measures,  when  apparently  beneficial.  How  can  those  employ  such 
a  presumptive  argument  who  are  always  telling  us  that  Christ  and 
the  apostles  did  not  foibid  slavery,  because,  in  the  then  actual  state 
of  society,  it  could  not  have  been  abolished?  Christianity  gives  us 
principles,  which  good  sense  is  to  apply  to  the  varying  occasions  of 
life. 

Page  109. — The  apparent  force  of  the  appeals  made  at  present  to 
the  pecuniary  economy  of  the  apostolic  churches,  consists  in  an  ex- 
treme misapprehension  of  f  >cts  relating  to  those  primitive  societies. 
The  Church  of  a  city,  as  of  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  Alexandria,  or 
■Rome,  was  constituted  of  many  more  believers  than,  on  ordinary 
occasions,  assembled  under  one  roof  The  Church  was  served  also 
by  many,  or  by  several  clerical  persons,  ministering  among  the  con- 
gregations in  rotation.  The  contributions  of  the  people  passed  into 
a  common  fund,  whence  distribution  was  made,  first  to  the  poor,  and 


322  APPENDIX    TO   SECTION    IV. 

then  to  the  officers  of  the  Church,  according  to  the  need  or  merits  of 
each.  The  ministers  therefore,  although  dependent,  as  a  body, Upon 
the  gratuities  of  the  people  at  large,  were  individually  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  single  congregations,  and  of  the  opulent  leaders  of  such 
congregations.  Although  the  community  of  goods  which  obtained 
in  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  during  the  first  flow  of  zeal  and  affection 
was  soon  discontinued,  it  served  to  give  apostolic  sanction  to  the 
practice  of  holding  a  fund,  and  of  accumulating  contributions. — 
Henceforth  no  Church  could  deem  this  practice  to  be  either  unlawful 
or  inexpedient:  in  fact,  it  universally  prevailed;  and  when  com- 
bined with  the  plurality  of  clerical  persons  attached  to  each  Church, 
placed  them  individually  in  a  position  essentially  unlike  that  of  a 
modern  congregational  minister. 

The  process  by  which  very  considerable  funds  came  into  the 
hands,  and  remained  under  the  control  of  the  bishop,  in  each  Church, 
was  very  simple.  Apostolic  precept,  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  Gos- 
pel, impelled  the  Christian  societies  to  provide  for  all  their  poor 
members;  but  to  do  so  was  found  to  demand  permanent  resources, 
and  especially  in  seasons  of  persecution,  when  many  were  stripped 
of  their  property,  or  Avere  rendered  incapable  of  pursuing  their  ordi- 
nary callings.  Moreover,  some  became  chargeable  to  the  Church, 
who,  on  becoming  Christians,  had  abandoned  immoral  occupations, 
and  were  not  able  entirely  to  maintain  themselves  in  any  other  man- 
ner. The  leaders  of  the  Church,  therefore,  soon  found  themselves 
liable  to  a  weighty  responsibility,  which  naturally  went  on  increas- 
ing, until,  in  fact,  a  large  number  of  the  sick,  the  aged,  the  young, 
and  the  imbecile  and  idle,  looked  to  them  ddily  for  bread.  All  this 
was  irrespective  of  the  maintenance  of  the  ministers  of  religion;  but 
both  the  poor  and  the  clergy  drew  from  one  and  the  same  purse. 
The  most  urgent  reasons,  and  the  dictates  of  common  prudence,  im- 
pelled those  who  stood  liable  to  these  various  demands,  as  well  to 
accumulate  a  fund,  as  to  keep  alive  the  liberality  of  the  opulent,  and 
to  encourage  the  practice  of  making  large  occasional  donations  to  the 
Church,  and  of  enriching  it  by  bequests.  Besides  the  weekly  obla- 
tions, from  which  none  but  the  paupers  of  the  Church  were  excused, 
incidental  gifts,  sometimes  of  great  value,  flowed  into  the  bishop's 
chest.  "Honourable  women  not  a  few,"  were,  from  the  first,  num- 
bered with  the  faithful ;  and  these,  with  that  pious  generosity  in 
which  the  softer  sex  has  always  outshone  the  other,  ofren  bestowed 
their  entire  fortune,  or  a  large  part  of  it,  upon  the  Church.  The 
established  custom  of  securing  treasure — gold,  silver,  and  precious 
Btones,  by  dedicating  it  in  rlie  temples,  was  adopted  substantially  by 
Christians,  (see  the  sixty-fifth  of  the  Canons  of  the  Apostles;  Cote- 
lerius,  tom.  i.  p.  446,)  and  so  it  happened  that  the  Church  plate,  in 
the  principal  cities,  was  frequently  of  great  value,  and  constituted  a 
fund  available  on  occasions  of  distress,  and  was  not  seldom  employed 
for  the  redemption  of  captive  brethren. 

Now,  of  these  large  funds  the  bishop  was  trustee  and  distributor, 
at  discretion.  The  deacons  Avere  his  collectors,  his  accom plants,  and 
his  almoners  ;  but  not,  as  they  should  have  been,  the  people's  agents 
or  representatives,  watching  over  and  controlhng  it  for  the  common 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    IV.  323 

benefit.  Indeed,  a  gradual  transition,  highly  injurious  in  its  conse- 
quences, very  early  rendered  the  deacon's  office,  as  tribune  of  the 
people  (if  we  may  so  style  him)  nugatory,  and  made  him  one  with 
the  clerical  body.  Inferior  as  he  was,  in  relation  to  the  presbyters 
and  the  bishop,  he  was  numbered  with  ecclesiastics — he  participated 
in  their  feelings,  promoted  their  interests,  and  shared  in  their  advan- 
tages. It  was  thus  that  the  real  and  effective  counterbalance  of 
powers  was  lost,  and  lost  earlier  than  we  have  the  means  precisely 
of  ascertaining.  It  was  of  litile  or  no  avail  that  the  people  were 
allowed  to  hold  up  their  hands  on  certain  occasions :  this  suffrage 
gave  them,  indeed,  a  choice  of  masters,  but  no  control  over  their  mas- 
ters. The  people  looked  up  to  a  sacerdotal  body,  including  several 
gradations  of  office,  and  in  occupation  of  large  funds,  which  they 
held  and  distributed  irresponsibly.  In  the  apostolic  intention  and 
practice,  not  only  did  the  people  elect  those  who  were  to  mantxgethe 
pecuniary  interests  of  the  community,  but  these  officers  acted  for  the 
people,  and  for  the  ministers,  with  an  independent  power.  The  silent 
movement  of  these  officers  toward  the  one  party,  and  away  from  the 
other,  was  alone  enough  to  annul  the  liberties  of  the  one,  and  to  spoil 
the  simplicity  and  integrity  of  the  other. 

It  does  not  require  to  be  formally  proved  that  the  position  of  a 
modern  minister  of  a  chapel,  insulated  and  dependant  upon  the  will 
and  wishes  of  those  who  raise  his  salary,  and  who  receives  that  salary 
from  deacons — laymen,  in  fact  and  in  feeling,  does  not  bear  compa- 
rison, in  any  sense,  with  the  circumstances  of  the  clergy  in  the  ancient 
Churches.  Even  the  smallest  society  had,  like  that  of  Philippi,  ita 
"  bishops  and  deacons,"  that  is  to  say,  several  clerical  persons,  who 
stood  together,  and  consulted  for  their  common  welfare ;  and  this 
college,  moreover,  had  the  administration  of  an  ample  revenue. — 
These  two  positions,  instead  of  being  nearly  the  same,  are  extremes; 
and  both  must  be  condemned  as  faulty.  The  circumstances  of  modern 
times,  which  allow  of,  and  indeed  demand,  the  entire  separation  of 
clerical  and  eleemosynary  funds,  would  make  the  adjustment  of  what 
relates  to  the  former  so  much  the  more  simple  and  easy.  Even  if  the 
voluntary  principle  were  adhered  to  for  the  maintenance  of  the  minis- 
ters of  religion,  there  can  be  no  need  that  it  should  be  left  to  operate 
in  that  unpropitious  form  which  Congregationalism  gives  to  it.  Let 
but  a  few  congregations — whether  of  a  city  or  district,  be  molten 
together  asaChurch,  and  the  funds  of  all  consolidated,  and  equitably 
distributed,  and  then  the  general  dependence  of  the  clergy  upon  the 
people  is  rendered  so  far  circuitous  as  serves  to  abate  the  importance 
of  the  latter,  and  to  relieve  the  former  from  personal  humiliations, 
and  cruel  anxieties. 

There  is  much  involved  often  in  the  selection  of  phrfises.  The 
goods  of  the  Church  soon  came  to  be  called  yrrayi^^iy.oi, — the  poor's 
fund,  out  of  which  the  bishop  was  to  take  the  necessary  charges  of 
the  clergy,  and  his  own  expenditure:  thus  the  canons  of  the  council 
of  Neo-Csesarea;  icvpiocit^  ;^5/)75^«rot  Tcruxty-ct  Xey erect,  and  of  the 
bishop's  discretion,  in  regard  to  this  fund  is  it  said,  y-a^  uvsKXaycr- 
Tei*   e^'ivcTlocv  e^atrtv  oi  iyricncoTroi  .  .  . 

On  the  important  point  of  the  subserviency  of  the  deacons  to  the 


324  APPENDIX   TO    SECTION   IV. 

bishops,  and  the  entire  abrogation  of  their  ])o;ju?ar  character^  abundant 
evidence  may  be  produced  from  all  sides.  The  Apostolic  Constitu- 
tions are  admissible  in  relation  to  the  prevailing  usages  of  the  times 
preceding  that  in  which  they  were  in  part  collected,  avid  in  part  fabri- 
cated : — the  second  book  contains  many  passages  bearing  on  this 
subject.  "  Let  the  deacon  report  every  thing  to  the  bishop,  even  as 
Christ  to  the  Father  ;  yet  himself  manage  what  he  can,  having 
received  his  authority,  to  this  effect,  from  the  bishop,  as  Christ  from 
the  Father.  In  a  word,  let  the  deacon  be  the  bishop's  ear,  the  bishop's 
eye,  the  bishop's  heart,  the  bishop's  soul,  so  that  he  maybe  lightened 
of  all  cares,  but  such  as  are  chief."  lib.  ii.  cap.  44.  The  deacons  dis- 
tributed the  elements  to  the  people  (Justin  Martyr,  Apol.  2)  but  were 
not  considered  as  competent  to  "  preside  over  the  mysteries ;"  they 
m  ght,  however,  on  occasions  of  necessity,  administer  baptism  ;  in- 
deed, we  find  this  rite  to  have  been  performed  sometimes  by  persons 
altogether  secular,  and  even  by  military  men  (see,  among  other  evi- 
dence, the  mosaics  coUecLed  by  Ciampini).  I'hey  were  also  the 
receivers  of  oblations,  &c.  but  not  the  trustees  of  church  property. 
Whatever  was  substantial,  as  a  means  of  power,  had  passed  from 
the  control  of  the  people  at  a  very  early  period.  The  usage  of  speech 
in  reference  to  these  officers  varied,  the  deacons  being  sometimes 
called  clergy,  and  sometimes  not. 

Page  115. — As  well  in  relation  to  the  election  of  presbyters  or 
bishops,  as  to  the  maintenance  of  both,  and  their  dependence  upon 
the  people,  the  argument  has  been  rendered  nugatory  by  foigetting 
the  total  dissimilarity  of  the  circumstances  of  a  modern  and  an  ancient 
congregation.  Useless  learning  has  been  employed  to  prove  that 
Tery  many  of  the  early  Churches  were  very  small,  and  not  more 
numerous  than  might  conveniently  assemble  in  one  building;  and, 
moreover,  that  the  pastors  of  such  single  congregations  were  called — 
bishops.  But  let  it  be  proved  (rare  instances,  if  indeed  there  are  any 
such,  excepted)  that  primitive  Churches  generally,  like  our  modern 
congregations,  were  served  by  a  solitary  clerical  person.  This  can 
never  be  done :  the  bishop,  or  the  principal  pastor,  how  humble 
soever  his  state,  and  how  narrow  soever  his  circle,  had  his  colleagues — 
his  presbyters,  and  his  deacons  ;  not  to  mention  the  neighbouring 
bishops,  and  one  very  important  occasion  recourse  might  be  had  to 
a  sacerdotal  college,  wherein  affairs  were  discussed  and  arranged. 
On  the  death  of  the  bishop  himself,  or  of  a  presbyter,  whatever  the 
mode  of  appointing  a  successor  might  be,  it  was  not  the  people  alone 
that  acted,  but  the  Church,  guided  and  controlled  by  its  surviving 
leaders.  Here  then  is  an  essential  difference  between  the  ancient 
church  polity,  and  that  of  modern  Congregationalism. 

Page  121. — On  general  grounds  it  is  desirable  that  the  argument 
concerning  the  source  of  the  authority  vested  in  the  clergy  should 
first  be  treited  as  a  ptii'ely  biblical  question  ;  and  then  dis  inctly,  as 
a  point  of  ecclesiastical  antiquity.  But  this  separation  of  the  two 
lines  of  argument  has  a  peculiar  importance  in  relation  to  tlie  Prin- 


AlPPENDIX  TO   SECTION    IV.  B25 

•ciple  professed  by  some,  that  the  New  Testament  is  the  only  law, 
and  the  sufficient  law,  as  well  in  matters  of  church  polity,  as  iii 
matters  of  faith  and  morality.  Let  then  the  whole  bibhcal  evidence, 
bearing  on  the  subject  of  the  clerical  function  be  reviewed,  at  the 
same  time  dismissing  the  recollection  of  facts,  the  knowledge  of  which 
is  drawn  from  other  sources  than  the  Scriptures.  Our  question  then 
is  this — according  to  the  letter  of  the  apostolic  writings,  or  according 
to  any  fair  and  clear  inferences,  thence  to  be  derived,  are  the  people 
warranted  in  assuming  to  themselves  the  power  of  calling  to  the 
■vv'ork  of  the  ministry,  or  of  electing  and  dismissing  their  particular 
religious  teachers? 

It  does  not  seem  equitable,  or  at  lea^t,  it  cannot  be  deemed  conclu- 
sive, to  adduce  our  Lord's  appointment  of  his  immediate  agents  as 
pertinent  to  this  inquiry;  for  it  will  not  follow  from  his  calling  and 
ordaining  whom  he  would,  that,  after  he  had  left  his  Church,  these 
same  persons  should,  in  the  same  sovereign  manner,  appoint  their 
successors.  It  is  to  the  precepts  and  the  practice  of  the  apostles,  after 
their  Lord's  ascension,  that  we  must  look  for  our  guidance  in  this,  as 
in  other  instances.  We  turn,  therefore,  at  once  to  St.  Luke's  narra- 
tive of  the  first  years  of  the  Church. 

Whether  or  not  it  belongs  directly  to  our  question,  the  instance  of 
the  appointment  of  a  successor  to  the  fallen  apostle  should  be  ad- 
verted to.  The  part  taken  by  the  little  company  of  the  Lord's  imme- 
diate friends  in  filling  up  the  number  of  the  twelve,  was  merely  to 
■look  out  from  among  themselves  such  as  were  qualified  to  stand  in 
the  room  of  Judas,  by  the  fact  of  their  having  constantly  consorted 
with  Jesus,  from  the  veiy  commencement  of  his  personal  mhiistry, 
until  the  close  of  it.  Two  were  found  Avho  had  done  so  (beside  the 
eleven)  and  these,  being  placed  before  Him,  who  "knoweih  all 
hearts,"  were  solemnly  subjected,  by  lot,  to  the  Lord's  decision  ;  and 
having  given  their  lots,  the  lot  fell  on  Matthias,  who  thenceforward 
was  reckoned  with  the  twelve :  he  thus  became  the  Lord's  KX-^po^ 
one  of  the  Lord's  clergy.  "  Nam  et  cleros  et  clericos  hinc  appellatos 
puto,"  says  Augustine  (referring  to  the  appointment  of  Matthias), 
This  instance  rnay  be  regarded  as  an  extension  only  of  Christ's  direct 
agency,  in  constituting  the  apostolic  college ;  and,  therefore,  not  con- 
clusive in  relation  to  our  question  ;  but  we  cannot  but  think  that  it 
affords  a  natural  and  simple  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  term 
clergy,  as  applied  specially  to  the  ministers  of  religion. 

The  transaction  reported  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Acts,  may  or 
may  not  be  regarded  as  the  origin  of  the  deacon's  office.  In  substance, 
the  duties  committed  to  these  seven  stewards  were  the  same  as  those 
aftei  wards  discharged,  in  all  the  Churches,  by  the  deacons.  The 
seven  were  men  commended  by  their  eminent  personal  piety,  and 
general  good  fame,  to  the  confidence  of  all,  and  they  were  entrusted 
with  the  funds  of  the  society,  and  with  the  distribution  of  them._  The  \ 
several  parts  of  this  transaction  are  very  clearly  distinguished  in  the 
narrative  ; — the  proposition  to  relinquish  the  secular  afit\irs  of  the 
Chinch  came  from  the  apostles,  who  had  power  to  retain,  if  they  had 
thought  proper,  that  charge.  It  was  the  apostles,  also,  who  com- 
mitted this  trust  to  the  seven  ;  but  it  was  the  multitude^  the  mass  of 

28 


326  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    IV. 

believers,  wlio  chose  these  officers,  and  chose  them  "  from  among  them- 
selves." This  instance  ought,  assuredly,  to  be  considered  as  indi- 
cative of  a  GENERAL  PRINCIPLE,  and  a  very  important  one,  or  shall 
•we  say  of  two  principles,  namely,  that  the  ministers  of  religion  do 
well  to  discharge  their  hands  wholly  of  pecuniary  affairs  ;  and  that 
the  choice  of  trustees  for  the  management  of  these  interests  rests 
with  the  people  at  large.  An  effective  adherence  to  these  principles 
•would  have  precluded  a  very  great  proportion  of  all  the  abuses  and 
corruptions  that  stain  chui'ch  history  from  the  first  age  to  the  present. 
The  X^'P<>'^o^'^  of  the  people,  and  the  X>^ipoh<!-icc  of  the  apos- 
tles, are  plainly  exemplified  in  the  appointment  of  these  seven  church- 
■wardens.  That  Philip,  one  of  the  seven  (if  the  same  Philip)  is  found 
(chap.  viii.  5)  "  preaching  the  woi-d,"  does  not  make  him  other  than 
a  layman  ;  for  it  is  manifest  that  the  believers  at  large,  as  well 
as  the  deacons,  in  the  first  age,  used  the  liberty  of  preaching  and 
teaching. 

The  sending  Paul  and  Barnabas  on  a  special  mission,  and  by  the 
immediate  indication  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (xiii.  2)  does  not  bear  upon 
our  subject.  We  refer  to  it  only  to  exclude  it.  In  passing,  -we  may 
note  the  allusion  to  John  (Mark)  Avho  attended  Paul  and  Barnabas, 
•we  might  say  as  their  deacon,  wT';^f7J5$,  the  term  very  early,  if  not 
from  the  first,  employed  interchangeably  with  oiukqvo^  '.  so  Cle- 
mens Alex.  Strom,  lib.  vii.  "^iT*  yTy/^sT/xj^y  h,  el  ^lUKOvet, 
speaking  of  the  species  cf  service  performed  severally  by  presbyters 
and  deacons. 

XetpoTovjicrccvTei  J^e  ctureTs  JCficr'  sjcjcAjjc/atv  TrpeT^vTepevq, 
(Acts  xiv.  23,)  "  ordaining  for  them  ciders  in  each  congregation."  But 
•who  was  it  that  stretched  forth  the  hand,  in  electing  and  appointing 
these  eiders?  the  construction  leads  us  without  doubt  to  say,  Paul 
and  Barnabas.  Besides  ;  the  democratic  sense  of  the  term,  as  im- 
plying the  voting  of  the  people,  is  balanced  by  its  frequent  use  on 
occasions  when  an  absolute  appointment  by  an  individual  authority 
is  intended. — "  Sed  etiam,  absque  suffragiis  eligere  aliquem." — 
Schleusner,  and  see  Suicer,  m  voc.  The  word  therefore  being  open 
to  both  meanings,  we  follow  the  manifest  sense  of  the  passage  ;  or  if 
no%  some  direct  evidence  must  be  produced  in  opposition  to  that 
sense.  Apart  from  such  evidence,  this  passage  has  no  weight  on 
the  side  of  the  popular  election  of  church  rulers. 

Though  relating  to  another  article  of  church  polity,  the  account  of 
the  Council  of  Jerusalem  (cha}).  xv.)  should  be  adverted  to  as  proof 
of  that  open  and  popular  constitution  of  the  apostolic  societies,  apart 
from  Avhich  it  can  never  be  sate  to  grant  to  the  clergy  the  indepen- 
dence and  the  high  prerogative  that  may  justly  be  claimed  for  them. 
"  Then  it  seemed  good  to  the  apostles  and  to  the  presbyters,  with 
THE  WHOLE  CONGREGATION,  to  Send  men,"  &c.  The  decrees  decided 
upon  ill  this  council  were  sent  forth  as  determined  "  by  the  apostles 
and  presbyters,"  yet  vrith  the  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  multi- 
tude. 

An  allusion  to  the  popular  appointment  of  bishops  and  presbyters, 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    IV.  327 

if  there  had  been  any  such  usage  in  the  Church  of  Ephesus,  might 
naturally  have  found  a  place  in  St.  Paul's  address  to  the  rulers  of  that 
Ciiurch  (Acts  XX.)  We  would  not  however  lay  stress  upon  the  ab- 
sence of  it;  only  observing,  that  the  phrase  actually  employed,  di- 
rectly favours  the  supposition  that  these  officers  had  received  their 
authority  irrespectively  of  the  popular  will.  "Look  to  yourselves, 
and  to  all  the  flock,  in  the  which  the  Holy  Spirit  has  set  you,  bish- 
ops, to  tend  the  congregation  of  the  Lord.".  .  .  .  Certainly  this  pas- 
sage contains  nothing  that  avails  the  popular  argument. 
-  We  have  thus  reviewed,  and  it  is  soon  done,  the  canonical  record 
of  the  first  years  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  have  found  a  few  inci- 
dental phrases,  only,  that  at  all  relate  to  the  appointment  or  election 
of  teachers  and  rulers.  Of  these  few  phrases,  one  is  etymologically, 
of  ambiguous  import,  and  therefore  abstractedly  indecisive  ;  but  it  is 
thrown  to  the  side  of  authoritative  ordination  by  the  grammatical 
construction  of  the  passage.  We  are  compelled  then  to  say  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  popular  creation  and  election  of  church  officers  (dea- 
cons excepted)  receives  no  reasonnble  support,  director  indirect, 
from  the  inspired  history  of  the  first  promulgation  of  the  Gospel.  Ifj 
in  fi\ct,  presbyters  and  bishops  were,  from  the  commencement,  cho- 
sen by  the  people,  and  were  removeable  at  their  pleasure,  and  if  this 
popular  power  be,  as  it  is  alleged,  the  main  pillar  of  church  polity, 
and  the  most  importantand  precious  of  all  the  privilegesof  Christians, 
in  their  social  capacity,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  astounded  at  find- 
ing that  it  is  neither  affirmed,  nor  exemplified,  nor  alluded  to,  by  the 
writer  who  has  furnished  us  with  almost  all  we  can  know  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  primitive  societies.  It  is  next  to  be  inquired,  if  the 
apostolic  epistles  supply,  in  this  respect,  the  deficiency  of  the  narra- 
tive of  St.  Luke. 

The  very  structure  of  the  apostolic  epistles  contradicts  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Romish  Church,  that  no  discretion  is  left  to  the  laity  in 
matters  of  religion  ;  for  it  is  to  the  faithful  at  large  that  these  letters, 
appealing  to  their  judgment  and  conscience,  are  addressed.  Q,ues- 
tions  of  theology,  and  of  discipline,  are  laid  before  the  people  with- 
out restriction.  At  the  same  time,  these  epistles,  very  frequently, 
and  very  distinctly,  recognize  the  authority  of  church  rulers;  yet  no 
where  affirm,  or  suppose  that  this  authority  was  of  popular  organiza- 
tion, or  that  it  was,  in  any  way,  under  popular  control. 

The  Epistle  of  James  docs  not  afford  evidence  bearing  on  our  ques- 
tion, unless  we  so  consider  the  allusion,  chap.  v.  14,  to  the  presbyters 
of  the  Church,  and  to  the  efficacy  of  their  official  services  in  restoring 
the  sick.  The  First  Epistle  of  Peter  goes  a  little  further,  yet  only  a 
little.  The  advice,  chap.  iv.  10,  1 1,  determines  nothing,  and  supports 
no  inference  ;  but>the  direct  admonition  addressed  (chap,  v.)  to  the 
presbyters,  is  pertinent  in  proving,  as  we  have  already  said,  it  it  need- 
ed to  be  proved,  the  existence  of  a  ruling  order,  possessed  of  power 
ample  enough  to  expose  them  to  the  temptation  of  using  it  despotical- 
ly ;  and  also  that  this  governing  class  received  a  remuneration  for 
their  services,  and  had  opportunity  to  enrich  themselves  in  a  manner 
incompatible  with  the  Christian  profession.  Moreover,  it  is  impHed 
that  there  might  be  some,  called  upon  to  discharge  episcopal  duties, 


328  APPENDIX   TO   SECTION   TV, 

who  would  seek  to  excuse  themselves  from  the  burden,  and  to  escape 
the  personal  danger  often  attending  this  distmction  in  times  of  perse- 
cution. Such  are  exhorted  to  perform  their  parts  not  reluctantly,  or 
from  compulsion,  but  with  a  ready  mind.  These  advices,  one  might 
have  thought,  would  include  some  instructions  addressed  to  the  peo- 
ple, on  the  important  subject  of  the  election  of  their  pastors,  or  of 
tlieir  removal  when  necessary,  if  indeed  any  such  powers  actually  rested 
with  the  people.  The  subject  of  the  false  teachers,  predicted  in  the 
Second  Epistle,  we  have  had  occasion  to  mention,  and  here  again  it 
seems  natural  to  look  for  a  caution  against  precipitancy  in  the  choice 
of  teachers. 

In  the  times  of  St.  John,  the  Christian  societies  were  open  to  the 
intrusion  of  false  teachers — probably  self-constituted,  who  laboured 
to  establish  another  doctrine  than  that  of  the  apostles.  These  were 
to  be  rejected,  according  to  the  rule  given  chap.  iv.  2.  This  advice 
recognizes,  therefore,  a  power  of  discrimination,  lodged  with  the  peo- 
ple, and  it  furnishes  a  corrective  of  the  abuses  thati^ight  result  from 
the  absolute  irresponsibiUty  of  pastors.  In  whatever  way  the  people 
received  their  teachers,  they  were  not  required  to  accept  from  them 
d6ctrines  subversive  of  Christianity  itself.  It  deserves  to  be  noted 
that  these  false  prophets  appear  to  have  been  itinerant  preachers, 
•who,  destitute  of  credit  and  authority  at  home,  nevertheless  found 
the  means  abroad,  and  where  they  were  unknown,  to  recommentl 
themselves  to  the  simple.  We  must  gather  this  also  from  St.  John's 
Letter  to  the  Elect  Lady.  "If  any  one  come  among  you,  and  does 
not  bring  with  him  this  doctrine,  show  him  no  hospitality,  neithef 
hail  him  as  a  friend  ;  for  whosoever  does  so,  becomes  a  sharer  in  his 
evil  deeds."  The  Epistle  to  Gaius  affords  direct  evidence  of  the  early 
abuse  of  church  authority.  Whether  the  ambitious  and  despotic 
Diotrephes  were  bishop,  deacon,  or  merely  an  opulent  manager  of 
the  congregation,  cannot  be  known  ;  if  the  former,  which  is  the  most 
wobable,  why  not  advise  the  Church  to  remove  him  from  his  place  ? 
This  sort  of  indistinct  evidence  does  not  sustain  positive  conclusions 
on  either  side;  and  certainly  does  not  yield  what  we  are  in  search 
of;  namely,  an  indication  of  the  popular  creations  o^f  bishops  and 
presbyters,  in  the  time  of  the  apostles. 

The  Epistle  of  Jude  adds  some  weight  to  our  conjecture,  that  the 
early  Churches  were  troubled  and  perverted,  chiefly  by  wandering 
teachers,  eio-repeq  frXa,\xTcci,  men  scouted  and  condemned  at  home, 
yet  artful  enough  to  gain  a  hearing,  as  they  passed  from  city  to  city* 
St.  Jude  seems  in  haste  to  overtake  some  of  these  pernicious  itinerants, 
and  to  caution  the  Churches  against  them.  He  felt  himself  compell- 
ed, he  says,  to  write  "  with  all  despatch,"  to  forewarn  the  brethren  of 
certain  men  who  were  slipping  themselves  into  the  Churches,  Avith 
the  worst  intentions,  and  who,  wherever  they  came,  began  by  revil- 
ing oroppo5ingthe  constituted  authorities.  Lascivious  in  their  man- 
ners, and  licentious  in  their  principles,  they  openly  professed  to  con- 
temn the  established  powers,  nor  scrupled  to  blaspheme  dignities. 
St.  Peter  says  to  the  presbyters,  ft'?'^'  oi><i  KecruKvpievevre^  rut 
xhiUfOiV,    St.  Jude,  speaking  of  these  contumacious  men,  affirms  that 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION   IV.  329 


they  set  at  naught  fcv^ioTijTcc.  There  was  then  a  lordship,  or 
masterly  authority  in  the  Churches,  which  the  one  apostle  forbids  to 
be  abused,  and  which  tiie  other  forbids  to  be  despised.  In  conckision, 
St.  Jude  gives  us  anotlier  mark  of  tliese  troublers  of  the  common 
peace;  they  were  such  as  had  "distanced  themselves,"  or  broke 
away  from  their  connections  ;  6i  u'roS'topfi^ovrei.  It  does  not  seem 
that  errors  and  abuses  had  ordinarily  arisen  from  those  whom  the 
apostles  had  themselves  ordained,  in  every  city  ;  but  from  strangers 
— from  self-constituted  teachers,  or  those  whom  the  people  had  gath- 
ered to  themselves:    eavroig  eTritrcu^evTovTi  h^c(,(rx.uMvq. 

Copious  and  various  as  are  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  and  full  as 
they  are  of  allusions  to  ecclesiastical  proceedings,  we  may  fairly  ex- 
pect to  obtain  from  them  some  recognition  of  the  popular  appoint- 
ment of  teachers,  if  that  had  actually  been  the  practice  of  the  Church- 
es which  he  founded. 

Several  of  the  exhortations  that  fill  the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  rtomans,  bear  upon  the  discharge  of  public  religious  functions. 
A  diversity  of  offices,  founded  upon  the  natural,  or  supernatural  di- 
versity of  gifts,  is  implied:  includnig  preaching  and  teaching,  minis- 
tering, (as  the  deacons)  distributing  alms,  and  presiding  over  the 
Church  ;  but  nothing  is  added  concerning  the  appomtment  of  indi- 
viduals to  such  offices.  We  ought,  however,  to  mark  the  care  with 
which  the  apostle  enjoins  the  general  rule  of  submission  to  constitut- 
ed authorities  ;  and  the  caution  he  gives  against  the  authors  of  fac- 
tion (chap.  xvi.  17;)  and  the  teachers  of  plausible  novelties.  The 
same  caution  expanded,  and  still  more  earnestly  enforced,  nieetsus 
again  and  again,  in  the  two  Epistles  to  the  faulty  and  chaotic  Corin- 
thian Church  ;  where,  as  it  is  evident,  the  democratic  feeling  had  a 
strength  against  which  the  whole  weight  of  the  apostolic  authority, 
miraculously  sustained,  had  to  bear.  The  formal  warrant  of  minis- 
terial maintenance  (1  Cor.  ix.)  has  already  been  referred  to.  The 
right  of  the  teacher  is  not,  as  we  see,  made  to  rest  vipon  the  claim  in- 
volved in  a  popular  election,  which  would  have  been  natural,  had 
such  been  the  method  of  appointment  to  office.  "  Did  you  not  call  ! 
and  choose  your  ministers,  and  ought  you  not,  therefore,  to  maintain 
them?"     The  apostle  does  not  thus  reason. 

The  remarkable  passage  (1  Cor.  xii.  28)  in  which  the  ranks  and 
offices  of  the  Christian  body  are  enumerated,  including,  as  it  does, 
ordinary  and  permanent,  as  well  as  extraordinary  and  temporary 
functions,  would  have  seemed  a  fit  place  for  inserting,  or  for  allud- 
ing to,  the  important  principle  of  the  popular  election  of  officers. 
The  absence  of  such  an  allusion  is  not  indeed  conclusive;  but  it 
leaves  us  still  unwarranted  in  exercising  the  power.  Again  a  speci- 
fic instance  presents  itself  at  the  close  of  the  epistle,  in  which  the 
want  of  the  evidence  we  are  searching  for  amounts  to  presumptive 
evidence  on  tlie  other  side.  The  family  of  Stephanus  had  given 
themselves  up  to  the  service  of  the  Church.  "  I  beseech  you,"  says 
the  apostle,  "  that  ye  submit  yourselves  to  such."  Yet  even  an 
apostle  does  not  claim  a  despotic  power  over  the  opinions  of  the  peo- 
ple.     "Not  as  if  we  were  lords  over  your  faith,"   (2  Cor.  i.  24.) 

28* 


330 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION^    IV. 


Thus  we  find  power,  and  power  springing  not,  as  it  seems,  from 
the  people  ;  but  yet  not  a  power  which  might  be  carried  beyond  the 
bounds  of  reason  and  love. 

The  instance  adverted  to,  (2  Cor.  viii.  19)  is  one  of  several,  show- 
ing the  common  practice  of  the  Churches — a  practice  carefully  ad- 
hered to  by  St,  Paul,  of  entrusting  contributions  to  persons  chosen 
and  commissioned  by  the  contributors.  This  equitable  and  neces- 
sary usage  should  never  be  lost  sight  of  The  apostle  was  highly 
sensitive  in  pecuniary  matters,  and  scrupulously  avoided  placing 
himself  in  any  position  which  might  lay  him  open  to  ungenerous  im- 
putations. In  a  word,  he  well  understood,  and  never  forgot,  the  dis- 
tinction between  spiritual  and  secular  affairs  ;  it  has  been  by  med- 
dling with  the  latter,  that  church  rulers  have  rendered  themselves 
unAvorthy  of  the  control  tliey  should  possess  over  the  former. 

Another  allusion  to  false  teachers  (2  Cor.  x\.  4)  strengthens  the 
belief  that  they  were  commonly  of  the  travelhng  sort.  "  He  that 
Cometh  unto  you,  preaching  another  Jesus  ;  "  and  these  itinerants,  it 
appears,  behaved  themselves,  where  they  came,  in  the  most  inso- 
lent, despotic,  aiKl  rapacious  manner  (verse  20.)  These  two  Epis- 
tles then,  ecclesiastical  as  they  are  in  their  topics,  do  not  furnish  a 
particle  of  evidence,  direct  or  indirect,  of  the  kind  we  are  seeking. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  touches  our  question  only  remotely, 
and  in  one  point,  where  it  enjoins  the  maintenance  of  the  teachers 
by  the  taught  (Chap.  vi.  6)  that  to  the  Ephesians  contains  a  pas- 
sage parallel  to  one  already  referred  to,  which  enumerates  the  seve- 
ral classes  of  church  officers,  of  whom  it  is  affirmed,  that  they  were 
"given  to  the  church  by  the  Lord  himself;  "  and  this  list  includes, 
not  merely  "apostles,  and  prophets,  and  evangelists,"  but  also  "pas- 
tors and  teachers;"  through  what  instrumentality  given,  we  are 
not  informed.  Hitherto  therefore,  we  have  made  no  progress  to- 
ward the  establishment  of  the  popular  right,  in  the  appointment  of 
teachers.  The  address  of  the'^Epistle  to  the  PhiHippians  has  been 
before  adduced,  as  attesting  the  important  fact  of  the  plurality  of 
clerical  persons,  in  the  apostolic  Churches.  That  those  of  the  upper 
class  are  styled  "  bishops,"  in  common,  is  a  circumstance  altogether 
insignificant,  except  in  relation  to  the  trivial  controversy  about  the 
names  of  office,  whether  these  I'^io-kottci  all  ruled  with  equal 
power,  or  submitted  to  the  guidance  of  a  senior  or  president,  we  are 
not  told. 

"  Say  to  Archippus,  look  to  the  ministry  (the  deaconship)  which 
thou  hast  received  in  the  Lord,  that  thou  fulfil  it."  This  is  all  we 
gather  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  touching  church  officers ; 
except  the  epithet  bestowed  upon  one  and  another,,  of  "faithful  minis- 
ters in  the  Lord."  The  Epistles  to  the  Church  at  Thessalonica  recog- 
nize that  right  of  maintenance  which  St.  Paul  and  his  companions 
waived  in  their  own  case  (1  Thess.  ii.6,and  2  Thess.  iii.9.)  "We  be- 
seech you,  brethren,  that  ye  know  (recognize  in  their  official  capacity) 
those  that  labour  among  you,  and  preside  over  you  in  the  Lord,  and 
that  admonish  you  ;  and  that  ye  render  to  them  the  very  highest  re- 
gard and  affection,  on  account  of  their  work."  (1  Thess.  v.  12.) 
Such  is  the  apostolic  exhortation  ;  but  it  is  not  qualified  by  any  re- 
ference to  popular  control  over  these  officers..    We  are  still  at  fault. 


APPENDIX   TO    SECTION    IV.  331 

then,  and  pass  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews;  which  contains  two 
passages  only,  that  touch  on  our  subject  (chap.  xiii.  7,  and  17)  and  the 
first  very  slightly.  "  Bear  in  mind  your  rulers,  who  have  spoken  to 
you  the  word  of  God,"  &c.  There  were  then  governors,  ajid  these 
were  preachers  as  well  as  presidents.  Yield  obedience,  to  k;  rjyov- 
fC£V6iq  vf^av^  to  your  governors,  and  submit  yourselves;  for 
they  (as  those  who  are  to  render  an  account)  watch  for  your  souls." 
This  unqualified  advice  demands  grave  consideration.  To  whom 
.•were  these  rulers  to  render  their  account — to  their  constituents,  or  to 
the  Lord  ?  assuredly  to  the  latter  ;  and  their  independence  of  the 
people  might,  not  unfairly,  be  inferred  from  this  reference  to  their 
higher  accountability.  But,  waiving  this  implied  reference,  there  is 
room  to  ask  whether  this  naked  statement  of  the  duty  of  submission 
to  pastors  and  bishops,  unaccompanied  by  any  allusion  to  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  people  in  constituting  and  removing  them,  suggests 
the  belief  that  such  a  sovereignity  was  actually  recognized,  or  in 
any  way  contemplated  by  the  writer?  The  contrary  must  in  all 
candour,  be  granted.  If  the  absolute  style  in  which  submission  to 
secular  rulers  is  elsewhere  enforced  by  the  apostles  is  adduced  as  a 
parallel  instance,  and  as  showing  that  the  absence  of  the  qualifying 
phrase  must  not  be  assumed  as  conclusive  in  favour  of  non-resistance 
to  intolerable  despotisms,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  was  not 
the  province  of  the  apostles  to  teach  principles  of  civil  government, 
which  men  are  to  digest  for  themselves,  and  that  they  looked  no  fur- 
ther than  to  the  immediate  duty  of  Christians — as  such,  and  not  as 
citizens.  But  the  pi-inciples  of  church  government  came  directly 
within  their  sphere  ;  and  in  these  matters  it  is  to  them  we  must  look 
for  our  guidance  and  warrant.  If  the  apostles,  in  commanding  obe- 
dience to  pastors,  say  nothing  of  the  people's  sovereignty,  we  are 
not  at  hberty  to  assume  that  they  admitted  any  such  sovereignty. 
The  admonition  before  us,  would  naturally  have  drawn  with  it  the 
counter  caution ;  or,  if  not,  it  would  somewhere  else  have  found  a 
place. 

It  only  remains  to  advert  to  the  three  personal  and  clerical  Epis- 
tles of  St.  Paul.  If  these  Epistles,  just  as  they  are  in  substance,  had 
been  addressed  to  Churches — to  "all  the  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus," 
at  Rome,  or  Ephesus,  or  Antioch,  it  would  have  been  strenuously, 
and  indeed,  not  unfairly  argued,  that  it  was  the  believers  at  large 
who  were  to  discharge  the  ecclesiastical  duties  to  which  the  instruc- 
tions they  contain  relate.  But  it  is  not  so,  and  the  presumption  is 
strong  that  the  selection  and  appointment  of  Church  officers  rested 
mainly,  if  not  exclusively,  with  the  individuals  to  whom  the  general 
superintendence  of  the  Churches  had  been  committed.  We  possess 
indeed  some  direct  evidence  in  favour  of  the  popular  election  of  dea- 
cons, at  least  when  these  officers  acted  as  the  trustees  of  church  re- 
venues ;  nevertheless,  as  they  were  not,  in  the  first  instance,  (if  it  be 
an  instance  in  point)  installed  without  apostohc  ordination,  so  were 
they  subject,  afterwards,  to  the  approval  and  control  of  the  primate 
—  Timothy. 

One  cannot  but  forcibly  feel  that,  if  the  election  of  pastors  by  th« 
people  had  been  an  element  of  primitive  Christianity,  or  if  it  had 


332  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    IV. 

been  prospectively  intended  by  the  apostles  to  take  effect  after  their 
own  demise,  some  allusion  to  it  would  have  found  a  place  in  these 
ecclesinstJcal  letters,  or,  as  we  may  call  them,  decretals.  The  so- 
lemn charge  committed  to  Timothy  was,  to  repress  the  insolence  of 
false  teachers,  and  generally,  to  preserve  order  in  "  the  house  of 
God."  That  this  supremacy  was  altogether  an  extraordinary  and 
temporary  extension  of  apostolic  authority,  is  a  gratuitous  assump- 
tion, not  to  be  admitted  until  proof  is  adduced  in  support  of  it. 

We  find  it  admitted  as  lawful,  nay,  praiseworthy,  that  a  man 
should  "desire  the  episcopal  dignity,"  nor  does  St.  Paul  give  any 
countenince  to  the  affected  reluctance  of  the  nolo  episcopari.  Yet 
none  were  to  be  admitted  to  this  office  but  such  as  were  recommend- 
ed by  their  personal  fitness ;  and  the  same  of  the  deacons,  in  regard 
to  wliom  the  qualification  must  include  their  wives. 

"Rebuke  not  a  presbyter"  (youth  as  thou  art)  but  rather  "en- 
treat him  as  a  father."  Timothy  ihen  was  so  placed  as  to  be  called 
upon  to  urge  the  elders  to  the  diligent  and  faithful  discharge  of  their 
duties.  He  had,  moreover,  the  superintendency  of  ruling  elders, 
and  of  some  who  were  rulers  merely,  and  not  teachers  and  preach- 
ers also.  These,  when  they  combined  both  kinds  of  service,  were 
to  receive  "  a  double  stipend,  for  the  labourer  is  worthy  of  his  re- 
ward." "Admit  not  an  accusation  against  a  presbyter,  unless  sus- 
tained by  two  or  three  witnesses."  Timothy  then  exercised  a  high 
jurisdiction  over  the  conduct  of  the  pi-esbyters.  Do  not  let  us  style 
him,  archbishop;  nevertheless  his  functions  were  precisely  those  of 
a  bishop  of  bishops;  for  presbyters  are  bishops.  If  all  this  be  not 
"written  for  our  learning,"  peremptory  and  conclusive  reasons  must 
be  furnished  to  the  contrary.  Until  they  are  produced,  we  shall 
calmly  conclude  that  the  principle  of  a  hierarchy  is  recommended 
to  us  by  apostolic  practice  and  precept. 

"  Lay  hands  suddenly  on  no  m-Mi :  "  the  power  of  ordination  then 
rested  with  Timothy.  This  power,  implied  in  the  first  Epistle,  is 
distinctly  affirmed  in  the  Second.  "  That  which  thou  hast  heard 
from  me,  among  many  witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faithful 
men,  who  shall  be  qualified  to  teach  others."  This  is  nothing  less 
than  a  f  )rmal  announcement  of  the  process  of  ecclesiastical  creation 
but  it  includes  not  the  most  distant  allusion  to  the  part  to  be  taken 
therein  by  the  people.  How  far  this  omission  is  to  be  regarded  as 
conclusive  against  popular  interference  in  this  matter  we  shall  not 
affect  to  determine.  In  relation  to  our  present  inquiry  it  cannot  es- 
cape our  notice  that  the  approaching  times  of  religious  degeneracy 
were,  by  the  apostle,  expressly  designated  by  the  circumstance  of 
the  wilfulness  of  the  people  in  spurning  the  sound  doctrine  they  had 
heretofore  received,  and  in  "  gat'iering  to  themselves  teachers,"  who 
would  consult  their  licentious  tastes.  This  prophetic  indication,  at 
least,  does  not  favour  the  practice  of  the  popular  election  of  religious 
instructors. 

The  Epistle  to  Titus  is  in  harmony  with  those  to  Timothy,  on 
the  point  before  us.  Titus  had  been  left  in  Crete,  with  supreme 
power  to  regulate  church  affiiirs,  and  to  "  set  up,"  or  appoint,  pres- 
byters in  each  city  of  the  Island.  Why  not  add — "such  as  the 
Churches  shall  select  and  approve? "    "  A  bishop,"  that  is,  such  as 


APPENDIX   TO    SECTION    IV. 


333 


these  ruling  presbyters,  "  must  be  blameless."  &c.  The  authority 
of  Titus,  like  that  of  Timothy,  was  of  no  precarious  or  despicable 
«ort ; — it  was  authority,  (chap,  ii,  15.) 

We  have  then  gone  through  the  apostolic  Scriptures,  noting  every 
passage  that  seems  to  bear  upon  the  subject  of  the  appointment  or 
the  powers  of  church  teachers  and  rulers  ;  and  iK>t  so  much  as  one 
of  these  passages  gives  support,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  alleged 
right  of  the  people  to  elect,  appoint,  and  remove  their  pastors.  Yet 
let  it  be  fully  understood  that  we  are  not  now  labouring  to  over- 
throw the  popular  influence  in  this  instance;  but  are  only  showing 
that,  if  admitted  in  fact,  it  must  be  justified  on  some  other  ground 
than  that  of  scriptural  precept  and  example* 

Certain  bodies  loudly  say — "our  principle  is  a  strict  adherence 
to  the  word  of  God,  as  well  in  matters  of  polity,  as  in  articles  of 
faith  and  rules  of  duty.  What  the  Bible  knows  nothing  of,  we 
know  nothing  of:  our  Churches  are  purely  apostolic,  so  far  as  we 
can  understand  the  apostolic  writings.  Traditions  we  reject;  the 
practice  of  the  ancient  Churches  is  not  our  guide  ;  the  Bible,  and 
tlie  Bible  alone,  is  the  religion  of  Protestants."  Yet  these  very  par- 
ties maintain  the  right  of  the  people  to  choose  their  ministers,  a» 
the  pnme  and  most  precious  article  of  their  church  polity.  Can 
these  two  professions  consist?  and  is  there  not  room  for  calling  upon 
those  who  avow  doctrines  so  incompatible,  to  reconsider  the  princi- 
pies  of  their  ecclesiastical  system  ? 

Page  123. — It  has  been  common  to  inveigh  against  the  distinction 
made  between  clergy  and  laity,  which  is  assumed  as  having  been 
the  origin  of  spiritual  despotism.  This  misdirected  objection  ha^ 
put  out  of  view  the  real  evil,  namely,  that  disjunction  of  clergy  and 
faity  which  the  former  contrived  to  effect,  and  in  great  measure  by 
embracing  the  deacons,  as  clerical  persons,  and  so  depriving  the  peo» 
pie  of  their  agents  and  representatives.  The  author  has  already  re* 
ferred  to  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  on  this  point:  he  would  not  be 
misunderstood  in  quoting  that  curious  collection.  There  is  littli 
doubt  it  embodies  a  considerable  portion  of  the  most  ancient  tradi- 
tions and  usages  of  the  Church,  mixed  up  with  the  compiler's  fabric 
cations.  Altogether,  it  affords  good  evidence  concerning  that  stat« 
of  things  which  was  prevalent,  or  which  was  becoming  so,  in  the 
third  century,  or  which  then  needed  a  little  help  to  give  it  authority 
and  universality.  These  Constitutions  every  where  bear  testimony 
to  the  fact  of  the  exclusion  of  the  laity  from  all  real  influence  io 
church  afl[airs.  Here  we  find  a  most  serious  departure  from  apos- 
tolic practice,  and  the  learned  writers  who  have  so  vainly  laboured 
to  show  that  the  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity  was  of  late  ori- 
gin, might  better  have  spent  their  time  in  exhibiting  the  rise  nnd 
progress  of  the  abuse  which  was  superadded  to  the  distinction.  The 
genuine  epistle  of  Clement  to  the  Corinthians,  one  of  the  earliestof 
the  extant  uncanonical  writings,  shows  that  the  terms  clergy  and  laity 
were  used  in  his  time,  as  we  find  them  in  a  latter  age :  o  ^cttKOi 
'^i^peiTo^  Toti  XoClfcoi^  TrpoTTccyfi-XTiv  ^eoercti.  To  the  same 
effect  Ignatius,  ad  Smyrn,;  and  Tertullian  in  many  places :  one  of 


334  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    IV. 

these  is  so  full  in  the  evidence  it  affords  of  the  fixedness  of  hierarchi- 
cal distinctions  in  that  early  age,  that  it  may  well  be  quoted.  The 
writer,  de  Prcescripl.  Hcereticorum  is  inveighing  against  tlie  disorder- 
ly practices  of  the  heretics,  and  their  contempt  of  that  dignity  and 
authority  which  the  Catholic  Church  maintaijied.  What  the  Church 
was,  we  here  learn  from  the  contrast  implied  between  it,  and  the 
separatists.  In  primis  quis  catechumenus,  quis  fideUs  (who  is  ini- 
tiated and  who  not)  incertum  est:  pariter  adeunt,  pariter  audiunt, 
pariter  orant:  ....  omnes  tument,  omnes  scientiam  pollicentur. 
Ante  sunt  perfect!  catechumeni,  quam  edocti.  Ipsce  mulieres  hcere- 
tic?e,  quam  procaces !  quoe  audeant  docerc,  contendere,  exorcismos 
agere,  curationes  repromittere,  forsitan  et  tingere  (baptise).  Ordi- 
nationes  eorum  temerarioe,  leves,  inconstantes.  Nunc  neophytos 
conlocant,  nunc  seculo  obstrictos,  nunc  apostatas  nostros,  ut  gloria 
eos  obligent,  quia  veritate  non  possunt.  Nusquam  facilius  proficitur, 
quam  in  castris  rebellium,  ubi,  ipsum  esse  illic,  promereri  est.  Itaque 
alius  hodie  Episcopus,  eras  alius:  hodie  Diaconus,  qui  eras  Lector: 
hodie  Presbyter,  qui  eras  Laicus,  nam  et  Laicis  sacerdotalia  munera 
injungunt.  The  contrary  of  all  this  was  therefore  the  common  and 
long-established  practice  of  the  Church,  at  the  close  of  the  second 
century.  Again,  the  same  writer  de  Fagain  Persecutiotie  ;  Sed  quum 
ipsi  auctores  (chiefs)  id  est,  ipsi  Diaconi,  Presbyteri,  et  Episcopi  fu- 
giunt,  quomodo  Laicus,  &c. ;  or  again,  ubi  tres,  ecclesia  est,  licet 
Laiici.    De  Exhort.  Castitatis. 

Page  130. — "  No  writer  of  the  age  of  Cyprian  ;"  in  truth  the  earli- 
est of  the  church  writers,  now  extant,  employ  the  terms  of  office  in  a 
well-defined  and  technical  manner.  Probably,  before  the  death  of 
the  apostles,  all  these  designations  had  been  fixed  in  their  artificial 
sense,  and  had  ceased  to  be  convertible.  So  at  least  we  find  them  in 
the  writings  of  the  apostolic  fathers;  and  in  Irenaeus,  often,  if  not 
uniformly. 

Page  133. — The  first  Christians  attached  great  impertance  to  the 
circumstance  of  partaking  of  one  and  the  same  loaf;  or  of  bread  con- 
secrated at  one  table,  in  the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist ;  and  it  was 
the  part  of  the  deacons  and  deaconesses  to  carry  the  elements  to 
those  members  of  the  Church  who  could  not  personally  attend  where 
the  bishop  presided;  so  we  learn  from  Justin  Martyr's  Second 
Apology. 

Page  136. — A  treatise,  not  a  note,  would  be  required  for  bringing 
together  the  evidence  which  proves,  what  indeed  none  can  well  pro- 
fess to  doubt,  namely — That,  in  the  larger  cities  the  Christians  were 
numerous  enough  to  constitute  several  congregations,  and  that  yet 
(until  divided  by  heretics)  they  formed  but  one  Church,  subject  to 
one  administrative  power,  whether  episcopal  or  presbyterian.  The 
difference  between  a  municipal  church  polity  of  this  sort,  and  our 
modern  Congregationalism,  such  as  we  find  it  in  our  English  cities 
and  large  towns,  is  essential,  and  of  the  highest  practical  importance. 
The  reader  will  not  expect,  in  a  volume  which  touches  the  question 


APPENDIX   TO    SECTION    V.  335 

of  the  different  forms  of  church  government  only  incidentally,  the 
evidence  that  bears  upon  that  question.  The  author's  limits  barely 
admit  of  his  adducing  a  small  sample  of  instances,  pertinent  to  his 
proper  subject. 


APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  V. 

Page  151. — The  ancient  superstition  concerning  the  sacraments, 
and  some  other  observances,  may  justly  be  named  as  the  initial  point 
of  Spiritual  Despotism.  It  was  on  this  stone  that  the  hierarchy  built 
its  towering  edilice.  But  who  shall  say  when  this  superstition  took 
the  pi  ice  of  apostolic  simplicity?  The  most  ambiguous  expressions 
(if  indeed  they  are  ambiguous)  meet  us  in  the  earliest  writers.  These 
could  not  be  here  introduced  with  advantage:  the  author  reserves 
what  he  may  have  to  advance  on  this  difficult  and  important  subject 
to  its  proper  place  in  a  work  he  has  in  preparation,  and  which  he 
will  not  forestah 

Page  153. — The  long-continued  and  anxious  disagreements  that 
arose  in  the  African  Church  from  the  contumacy  or  the  irregular  for- 
wardness of  the  confessors  in  granting  bills  of  reconciliation  to  the 
lapsed,  occupy  a  prominent  place  in  the  writings  of  Cyprian,  and  are 
familiar  to  all  readers  of  church  history.  These  difficulties  owed 
their  origin,  in  great  measure,  to  the  exaggerations  that  had  been  in- 
dulged in  concerning  the  merits  of  the  martyrs;  and  then  again, 
these  exaggerations  flowed  from  that  sophistication  of  the  Gospel 
which  had  early  got  ground.  To  do  any  damage  to  principal  truths, 
is  to  plunge  into  unlimited  practical  errors  and  inconveniences.  In 
Mr.  Rose's  translation  of  Neander,  the  English  reader  may  see  copi- 
ous quotations  from  Cyprian,  relating  to  tliis  subject.  On  points  of 
this  sort,  often  adverted  to  in  Church  histories,  and  well  understood, 
it  could  subserve  no  good  purpose  here  to  enlarge. 

Page  154. — From  the  expressions  used  by  Tertullian,  in  speaking 
of  the  conventions  of  the  Churches  of  Greece,  de  Jejuniis,  c.  13,  we 
should  gather,  that  such  representative  assemblies  were  not  very 
prevalent  in  his  time.  They  grew  more  and  more  into  use,  as  they 
were  found  to  facilitate  the  exercise  of  irresponsible  authority,  on  the 
part  of  the  clergy.  Ecclesiastical  writers  distinguish  synods  into 
four  soris,  the  first  kind  being  those  held  by  a  bishop  who  summoned 
the  bishops  of  the  neighbouring  cities  to  assist  him  on  some  occasion 
of  difficulty.  The  second  kind  was  that  of  the  metropolitans,  at  stated 
times  convening  all  the  bishops  of  their  province.  The  third  was 
that  of  patriarchs,  assembling,  in  like  manner,  all  of  the  episcopal 
order  within  their  jurisdiction  ;  and  the  fourth  was  what  has  usually 


336  APPENDIX   TO    SECTION    V, 

been  called  cecumenic,  or  universal,  in  which  the  chiefs  of  the  Chns- 
tian  world  were  drawn  together,  on  extraordinary  occasions,  for  the 
decision  of  urgent  controversies.  On  some  occasions,  indeed,  presby^- 
ters,  deacons,  and  many  of  the  people,  obtained  admission  to  synods; 
but  it  was  with  the  bishops  alone  that  the  decision  rested.  'Cum  in 
unum  Carthagini  convenissent,  Kalend.  Septembris,  Episcopi  plu- 
rimi  ex  provincia  Africa,  Numidia,  Mauritania,  cum  presbyteris  et 
diaconis,  prajsente  etiam  plebis  maxima  parte.'  ....  It  was  merely 
as  spectators,  or  perhaps  as  serving  to  give  importance  to  the  church 
party  in  the  view  of  the  separatists,  that  the  people  gained  admission 
on  this  occasion.  'Prresente  plebe,'  is  a  frequent  phrase  in  the  epis- 
tles of  Cyprian  ;  and  it  seems  that  he  wished  to  sustain  himself  by 
the  popular  concurrence  and  favour;  in  truth,  the  fierce  opposition  he 
encountered  from  some  of  his  clergy,  was  of  a  kind  that  rendered  it 
necessary  to  court  this  aid.  But  we  must  by  no  means  so  interpret 
such  expressions  as  to  suppose  that  any  substantial  influence  was 
accorded  to  the  laity ;  or  any  power  beyond  that  which  a  mob  often 
exerts  under  the  most  absolute  governments:  the  people  had  no  co7i- 
stitutional  power.  In  opening  the  council  of  Carthage  (An.  256) 
Cyprian  boldly  and  clearly  affirms  the  independence  of  bishops  one 
of  another ;  but  says  nothing  of  the  rights  of  the  inferior  clergy,  or  of 
the  faithful  at  large.  'Neque  enim  quisquam  nostrum  Episcopum 
8e  Episcoporum  constituit,  aut  tyrannico  terrore  ad  obsequendi  ne- 
cessitatem  collegos  suos  adigit;  quando  habeatomnis  Episcopus  pro 
licentia  libertatis  et  potestatis  sure,  arbitrium  proprium  ;  tamque  ju- 
dicari  ab  alio  non  possit,  quam  nee  ipse  potest  judica re.'  This  is  not 
altogether  the  language  of  apostles,  or  of  apostolic  men.  Tlie  sen- 
tences of  these  eighty-seven  prelates  might  very  aptly  be  adduced  in 
illustration  of  the  high  church  style  of  the  times — the  times,  not  of 
state  patronage,  but  of  persecution. 

Page  162. — The  councils  of  Ancyra,  of  Neo-Coesarea,  and  of  An- 
tiochjWere,  like  those  of  Africa  and  the  West,  episcopal  assemblies; 
and  they  exhibit  the  same  practice  of  exclusion, in  regard  both  to  the 
inferior  clergy  and  the  people.  The  thirteenth  canon  of  the  council 
of  Ancyra  may  be  adduced  in  proof  of  the  breadth  of  the  distinction, 
so  early  made,  between  the  higher  and  lower  clergy;  a  distinction 
which  excluded  even  the  country  bishops  from  the  prerogatives 
claimed  by  the  bishops  of  cities:  "It  is  not  permitted  to  Chorepisco- 
pi  to  ordain  presbyters  or  deacons;  nor  indeed  to  the  presbyters  of 
cities  to  do  so,  without  a  license  from  their  bishop,  to  that  effect." 
These  canons,  throughout,  imply  a  power  on  the  part  of  the  bishops 
nearly  absolute.  The  phrase  employed  by  Eusebius,  in  reference  to 
the  dignitaries,  assembled  at  the  council  of  Nice,  well  designates  the 
aristocratic  constitution  of  that  convention.  "From  all  the  Church- 
es," says  he,  "of  Europe,  Africa,  and  Asia,  there  came  together, 
rav  TOW  Beoo  Xeirovpyav  ru  a,y.poGiviu.  A  bishop,  absent 
on  account  of  extreme  age,  was  represented  by  his  presbyters.  A 
very  great  number  of  the  inferior  clergy,  and  even  of  the  laity,  fol- 
lowed in  the  trains  of  the  bishops,  and  swelled  the  crowd  that 
swarmed  around  the  imperial  palace,  during  the  session  of  the  coun- 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    V.  337 

cil.  Socrates  tells  us  that  there  were  in  attendance  upon  the  reve- 
rend fathers  several  laymen,  ^ice.Xe7cri)cvi(i  if4,7r£ipoi,  professionally- 
employed,  or,  as  we  may  say,  retained,  to  plead  on  difficult  points,  or 
to  assist  in  those  incidental  disputations  that  were  always  gomg  on 
out  of  doors.  It  was,  as  we  suppose,  at  one  of  these  unauthentic 
conferences  that,  as  this  historian  relates,  after  the  learned  wrangler's 
had  completely  confounded,  among  themselves,  all  principles  of  piety 
and  common  sense,  a  simjile-hearted  layman,  one  of  the  confessors, 
exclauiied,  "Christ  and  the  apostles  did  not  deliver  to  us  dialectic 
and  delusive  subtilties,  but  yvf^viv  y\icoy.riv  to  be  kept  in  its 
purity  by  faith  and  good  works. 

Page  165. — The  uninterrupted  transmission  of  the  great  ar- 
ticles of  Christian  faith  in  the  mother  Churches,  throughout 
Christendom,  is  an  argument  that  finds  a  place  in  almost  all 
the  catholic  controversial  wvilings  of  the  early  centuries.  There 
would  be  no  end  to  adducing  the  instances.  Irenoeus  especially 
insists  upon  this  ground  of  authority;  nor  ought  his  appeal  to 
the  consistent  and  harmonious  traditions  of  the  principal  Churches 
to  be  rejected  as  improper.  — See  contra  Hrereses,  lib.  iii.  cap.  3, 
and  lib.  iv.  cap.  26.  Origan,  by  no  means  a  favourer  of  Church 
Despotism,  calmly  asserts  the  discriminative  value  of  the  tradition- 
al faith  of  the  apostolic  Churches : — "Servetur  vero  ecclesiastica 
prrcdicatio  per  successionis  ordinem  ab  apostolis  tradita;  et  usque 
ad  prresens  in  ecclesiis  permanens  :  ilia  sola  credenda  est  Veritas, 
quai  in  nullo  ab  ecclesiastica  et  apostolica  discordat  traditione." 
Proif.  de  Principiis.  Tertullian  strenuously  makes  the  same 
appeal  to  the  continued  consistency  of  the  mother  Churches. 
Constat  proinde  onaiem  doctrinam,  quoe  cum  illis  Ecclesiis  Apos- 
tolicis  matricibus  et  originalibus  fidei  conspiret,  veritati  deputan- 
dum". . .  .  and  again:  "Hoc  enim  naodo  Ecclesiae  Apostolicoe  census 
suos  deferunt :  sicut  Srayrnceorum  ecclesia  Polycarpum  ab  Jomne 
conlocatum  refert :  sicut  Romanorum,  Clementem  a  Petro  ordina- 
tum  itidem,  perinde  utique  et  cetera?  exhibent  quos  ab  apostolis 
in  episcopatum  constitutos  apostolici  seminis  traduces  habeant. 
Confingant  tale  aliquid  h?eretici."  There  was  reason  and  force  in 
this  challenge  when  advanced  so  early  as  the  close  of  tlie  second 
century,  or  the  commencement  oi^  the  third. 

Page  178. — A  substantial  defence  of  Christianity  might  be 
grounded  upon  the  temper  exhibited  in  those  admirable  tracts 
which  were  addressed  to  the  P^oman  authorities  by  the  accomplish- 
ed apologists  of  the  faith,  in  the  second  and  third  centuries.  The 
spirit  and  maxims  therein  displayed  and  professed,  and  not  only 
professed,  but  practically  adhered  to,  were  immensely  superior  to 
any  thing  the  world  hud  hitherto  seen,  and  ought  to  have  con- 
vinced the  emperors  and  their  advisers,  that  the  new  sect,  if  fairly 
treated,  would  have  formed  the  best  support  of  the  decaying 
empire.  In  reading  the  learned,  tranquil,  manly,  and  yet  meek, 
Apology  of  Athenagoras,  and  in  recollecting  to  whom  it  was 
addressed,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  all  truth  and  reason 

29 


338  APPENDIX   TO    SECTION   VI. 

was  on  the  one  side,  and  an  infiituated  bigotry  on  the  other.  In 
equity,  we  should  reject  the  piiilosophic  pretensions  of  Antoninus; 
for  what  is  .that  philosophy  worth  which  is  found  to  avail  nothing 
with  a  prince,  mildly  entreated  to  protect  thousands  of  his 
suffering  and  innocent  subjects  from  horrid  cruelties?  _  The  same 
spirit  and  principles  meet  us  in  the  apologies  of  Tatian,  Justin, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Minuiius,  Felix,  and  Origen  ;  and  indeed 
in  all  the  early  writers  of  this  class;  and  manifestly  their  mode- 
ration was  not  that  of  individuals  merely,  but  was  the  charac- 
teristic temper  of  the  body.  The  author  will  here  take  leave  to 
recommend  strongly  the  perusal  of  these  tracts  to  the  intelligent 
reader;  and  especially  if  his  faith  in  Christianity  is  unfixed.  The 
later  apologists  approach,  at  times,  a  more  sturdy  style,  and  the 
common  emotions  of  resentment  are  to  be  traced  in  many  of  the 
turgid  orations  pronounced  at  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs,  after  the 
triumph  of  Christianity.  The  orations  of  Gregory  Is'yssen,  and 
of  Basil,  would  furnish  examples  of  this  sort;  or  it  might  be  enough 
to  refer  to  Lactantius,  de  J)Iortibiis  Persecntoruvi.  The  exultation 
of  the  Christians  over  their  fallen  adversaries  is  indeed  not  more 
than  is  natural,  but  it  is  somwhat  more  than  is  Christian-like.  Clui 
adversati  erant  Dio,  jaceni;  qui  templum  sanctum  everterant, 
ruina  majori  ceciderunt;  qui  justos  excarnificaverant,  ccelestibus 
plagis  et  cruciatibus  mentis  nocentes  animos  profuderunt.  Distuler- 
at  enim  poenas  eorum  Deus,  ut  ederet  in  eos  magna  et  mirabilia 
exempla 

But  no  evidence  more  explicit  concerning  the  feeling  of  Chris- 
tians, as  a  great  and  potent  body  in  the  state,  can  be  adduced,  than 
that  which  is  contained  in  an  often-quoted  passage  of  Tei-tuliian's 
Apology,  cap.  37,  where  he  distinctly  reminds  his  fellow-citizens 
of  the  power  of  the  Christians — a  power  they  would  not  employ, 
to  right  their  own  cause.  There  can  be  litile  doubt  that  this  elo- 
quent and  vigorous  apology  rung  in  the  ears  of  the  Roman  authori- 
ties, from  the  moment  of  its  appeaiance,  to  the  times  of  Diocletian  ; 
it  might  perhaps  even  serve  to  aggravate  cruelties  which  were  felt 
to  be,  in  the  highest  degree,  dangerous  to  the  perpetrators,  unless 
by  such  means  the  utter  extinction  of  the  sect  could  be  effected. 

To  avoid  retracing  the  same  ground,  or  recurring  to  topics  nearly 
allied,  some  references  and  illustrations  which  might  haA^e  been 
appended  to  the  fifth  Section,  are  reserved  to  find  a  place  in  those 
attached  to  the  sixth. 


APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  VI. 

Page    187. — The  author  will   not  be  misunderstood  as  speaking 
literally   of  the  behaviour  of  Constantine  at    church.      Nothing 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VI.  339 

could  be  more  reverential  or  decorous  than  his  conduct  on  all  oc- 
casions of  frequenting  public  worship,  of  which  Eusebius  and 
Socrates  report  many  instances. 

Page  192. — Christianity  had  been  declared,  by  Gallienus  (An. 
259,)  a  religio  licita,  and  the  Church  had,  in  consequence  of  this 
decree,  enjoyed  a  long  repose.  But  Constantine's  toleration,  as 
it  sprung  from  different  motives,  and  was  understood  to  issue  from 
his  personal  convictions  in  fovour  of  Christianity,  soon  placed 
the  Christians,  throughout  the  empire,  on  ground  they  had  never 
heretofore  occupied.  Constantine's  decree  of  universal  toleration, 
dated  from  Milan,  as  reported  by  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.  lib.x.  cap.  5, 
is  worthy  of  the  most  enlightened  times:  it  is  simple  in  expression, 
explicit,  and  ample.  This  same  decree,  which  protects  all  subjects 
of  the  empire  from  molestation  on  account  of  their  religion,  be  it 
what  it  may,  naming  especially  the  Christians,  requires  also  a 
restitution  of  the  property  of  the  churches,  which  had  been  lately 
confiscated.  "  And  moreover,  as  the  said  Christians  are  known 
to  have  possessed,  not  only  the  buildings  in  which  they  ordinarily 
assemble,  but  also  other  property,  and  which  appertains  net  to  in- 
dividuals among  them,  but  to  the  society,  all  such  possessions,  from 
the  moment  of  the  promulgation  of  this  our  decree,  you  -vill  com- 
mand to  be  restored  without  question,  to  each  corporation  or 
church."  So  much  in  the  true  spirit  of  toleration  is  this  decree, 
that  the  Romanist  commentators  upon  Eusebius,  instead  of  ap-j'i'xud- 
ing,  resent  it,  as  an  insult  and  an  injury  to  the  Ciiurch. — "  \7hat! 
shall  the  Catholic  Church  receive  its  liberties  in  common  with  ^ews, 
Samaritans,  and  heretics?"  In  fact,  this  broad  indulgence  soon  ex- 
cited the  jealousy  of  the  emperor's  episcopal  advisr^.rs,  and  ha  vras 
induced  to  issue  decrees,  contrary  to  his  inclination  and  fcstter 
judgment,  but  more  to  the  taste  of  arrogant  Cliurchmen.  Through- 
out the  history  of  Constantine's  religious  administration,  we  have 
to  notice  the  distinction  between  his  spontaneous  measures,  and 
those  acts  which  sprung  from  the  ecclesiastics  to  whose  intemperance 
and  bigotry  he  thought  himself  compelled  to  give  v/ay.  In  a  sub- 
sequent decree  the  property  of  the  churches  is  incidentally  specifi- 
ed, as  consisting  in  "gardens  and  houses."  The  rnoveaMe  wealth  of 
which  they  had  been  plundered  it  was  not  possible  to  recover;  yet 
it  was,  in  part,  replaced  by  the  liberal  donations  of  tlis  emperor, 
and  with  these,  and  their  actual  funds,  the  Christians  found  them- 
selves immediately  able  to  construct  spacious  nnd  splendid  churches, 
in  the  stead  of  the  humbler  edifices  that  had  been  destroyed  during 
the  late  persecutions. 

Page  197. — AVe  should  by  no  means  forget  that,  although  Con- 
stantine  went  some  way  toward  endowing  the  ministers  of  Christi- 
anity, by  granting  them  certain  parmanent  revenues,  fruits,  and 
customs,  he  left  entirely  unrestrained  their  command  over  the  super- 
stitious liberality  of  the  people.  There  was,  therefore,  in  this 
system,  the  cost  of  an  establishment  without  its  benefits.  The 
Church  was  so  much  the  more  enriched  ;  but  the  welfare  of  the 
community  was   not  provided  for.    Beside  the  restitution  of  their 


$iQ  APPENDIX   TO   SECTION  VT, 

corporate  property,  Constantine  exempted  the  clergy  from  the 
liability  thev  had  hitherto  stood  under,  as  citizens,  to  discharge  pub- 
lic offices.  "  Eusebius,  lib.  x.  cap.  7.  This  sort  of  exemption  has 
been  approved  of  as  fit  and  necessary  in  most  civilized  countries. 

Page  199. — When  first  summoned  to  surround  the  emperor,  and 
to  sit  at  the  imperial  table,  many  of  the  bishops,  as  we  infer  from 
an  incidental  expression  of  Eusebius,  de  Vita  Constant.  lib.  i.  cap.  42, 
were  but  poorly  attired ,  they  very  quickly,  however,  learned  to 
accommodate  themselves  to  the  usages  of  a  court,  and  this,  not  in 
habiUments  only,  but  in  behaviour.  Indeed,  if  we  are  to  give 
credit  to  Socrates— esteemed  a  trustworthy  writer,  the  deference  ex- 
acted by  the  bishops  from  the  emperor  and  his  courtiers  was  as 
great  as  the  most  arrogant  hierarchs  of  later  ages  have  demanded  : 
for  example,  the  emperor,  in  entering  the  hall  of  his  oivn  palace, 
where  the  Fathers  of  the  Nicene  council  were  convened,  did  not 
presume  to  sit  until  he  had  received  a  nod  from  them,  giving  him 
permission  to  do  so  :  he  then  meekly  took  his  seat  on  a  golden  stool, 
as  Eusebius  tells  us,  placed  in  the  open  space  around  which  the 
bishops  were  arranged.  Tjo-xott,  rU  evXu^stct,  x,cct  ul^Zq  rav 
tcvhcoVf  rov  ^ccTiXioc  Kocrei^^sv. 

Page  201. ^-Numberless  are  the  monastic  rules  and  canons  directed 
io  the  important  object  of  securing  to  religious  houses  the  personal 
effects  of  those  who  entered  them.  For  a  monk  to  retain  possession 
even  of  a  shilling,  as  private  property,  was  deemed  one  of  the  most 
serious  crimes  of  which  he  could  be  guilty.  A  curious  enactment, 
on  this  subject,  is  found  among  the  Decretals  of  Gregory  IX.  A 
monk  retaining  private  property,  without  the  special  permission  of 
his  abbot  (which  was  in  certain  cases  granted)  was  not  to  receive 
Christian  burial :  or,  if  the  discovery  were  afterwards  made  of  his 
■feavino-  died  possessed  of  clandestine  effects,  exhumation  was  to  take 
plg^ce— provided  it  could  be  done  without  causing  great  public  scan- 
dal •  and  his  remains  cast  forth  from  the  sacred  precincts  :  that  is  to 
say,'  adds  the  commentator,  if  the  bones  of  the  guilty  brother  can  be 
distinguished  from  those  of  others.  Decret.  lib.  iii.  tit.  35.  But  the 
same  practice  and  principle  is  met  with  in  the  monastic  writers  of  a 
much  earlier  time.  The  text  and  profe^ssion  of  the  system  was, 
ftoiotx^i  «'  <»  '"fl  y^  ycryii^a,  ^tirav,  f^a^vuxh  oox.  'int. 
But  though  the  monk  must  be  a  pauper,  the  fraternity  might  become 
as  wealthy  as  it  pleased  ;  such  are  the  subterfiiges  of  spurious  piety* 
The  epistles  of  Gregory  I.  contain  several  allusions  to  the  wills  of 
monks;  and  it  seems  that  different  usages  obtained  in  the  different 
orders  in  this  i-espect ;  some  demanding  the  absolute  surrender  of  all 
personal  property,  while  others  allowed  wealthy  brethren  to  retain 
and  dispose  of  their  fortunes.  This  same  Pope  grants  express  license 
to  certain  abbots  to  bequeath  their  private  property,  Epist.  22,  and 
in  other  cases  authenticates  the  surrender  of  a  monk's  property  to  the 
monastery,  lest  the  grant  should  be  called  in  question  by  his  lawful 
hears.    From  the  Justinian  code,  it  appears  that  monks,  in  the  sixth 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VI.  ^41 

century,  were  generally  allowed  to  dispose  of  their  effects  by  will, 
Jerome  approves  the  practice  observed  in  the  monasteries  of  Egypt, 
of  buryiug,  with  a  monk,  any  little  savings  he  might  have  made 
from  the  product  of  his  labours  ; — according  to  that  Scripture,  "  Thy 
moiiey  perish  v/ith  thee."  Epist.  ad  Eustochium.  To  the  same  effect 
Basil ;  Constitutiones  Monaslicce,. 

Page  202. — Nothing  that  can  be  deemed  important,  either  in  a 
religious  or  ecclesiastical  sense,  appears  to  be  connected  with  those 
adjustments  of  Church  polity  which  Constantine  effected.  He  found 
the  Christian  world  already  meted  out  under  three  or  four  suprema- 
cies ;  and  he  only  brought  these  existing  governments  into  conve- 
nient conformity  with  the  new  arrangements  which  he  established  in 
the  civil  constitution  of  the  empire.  His  error  was,  the  not  discern- 
ing the  dangerous  ambition  of  the  Roman  pontiff,  or  not  providing 
against  what  he  might  have  foreseen  would  be  the  course  of  events, 
when  the  bishop  of  Rome  was  left  lord  of  Italy  and  the  Western 
Church.  Whether  a  complex  hierarchical  system  be  good  or  bad,  it 
was  fully  established  and  digested,  at  the  time  of  the  imperial  con- 
version. This  f  ict  there  can  be  no  need  to  support  by  formal  evi- 
dence ;  the  proof  of  it  meets  us  every  whei'e.  Let  the  reader  look 
through  the  Apostolic  Constitutions. 

Page  204. — It  is  pretty  certain  that  Constantine  would  gladly  have 
left  to  the  chiefs  of  the  Church  the  control  of  all  spiritual  affairs;  but 
the  endless  disagreements  that  prevailed  among  them,  and  in  the 
course  of  which  he  Avas  appealed  to,  sometimes  by  the  weaker,  and 
sometimes  by  the  stronger  party,  involved  him  unavoidably  in  con- 
troversies and  disputes  of  all  kinds,  and  left  him  no  liberty  to  observe 
that  line  which  at  first  he  had  marked  out  for  himself.  The  feuds  of 
the  clergy,  although  he  could  not  but  see  that  they  threw  power  into 
his  hands,  gave  him  sincere  uneasiness ;  and  his  earnest  remonstrances 
with  them,  on  this  head,  put  it  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  his  de- 
sire of  concord  and  unity  prevailed  altogether  over  his  love  of  influ- 
ence. Gladly  would  he  have  embraced  the  respectable  separatists 
of  the  time  in  the  arrangements  which  he  laboured  to  bring  about; 
but  his  good  intentions  were  frustrated,  as  well  by  the  unyielding 
tempers  of  the  non-conformists,  as  by  the  haughtiness  of  the  Catholic 
bishops.  Vv^e  learn  from  Socrates,  lib.  i.  cap.  10,  thai,  with  the  view 
of  comprehending,  if  possible,  the  existing  parties,  the  emperor  sum- 
moned Acesius,  aNovatian  bishop,  to  the  council  of  Nice,  with  Avhom 
he  amicably  conferred.  "  Why,"  asked  the  emperor,  "do  you  sepa- 
rate yourself  from  the  communion  of  the  Church  ?"  Acesius  replied 
by  stating  the  origin  and  the  grounds  of  the  Novatian  dissent,  upon 
hearing  which  Constantine  exclaimed — "  Good  man,  set  a  ladder 
then,  and  climb  up  to  heaven  alone."  Again  and  again,  in  reading 
the  history  of  the  times,  we  have  to  regret  that  the  imperial  nursing 
father  of  the  Church  did  not  oftener  lean  upon  his  own  sound  judg- 
ment and  honest  intentions,  rather  than  yield  to  the  wishes  of  his 
ecclesiastical  advisers.  On  one  occasion,  nothing  but  the  vigorous 
cood  sense  of  a  monk — Paphnutius,  saved  the  Church  from  aianati- 

29* 


342  APPENDIX    TO    BKCTION    VI, 

eal  attempt  of  the  bishops  to  impose  celibacy  upon  the  clergy.  Thi-s 
interposition,  says  the  historian,  Socrates,  was  the  more  remarkable, 
because  Paphnutius  himself  had,  from  his  youth,  maintained  the 
strictest  continence.  Whatever  opinion  we  may  form,  if  indeed  we 
should  attempt  to  form  any,  of  the  personal  character  of  Constantine, 
or  of  his  religious  sentiments,  it  is  unwarrantable  to  call  in  question 
the  sincerity  of  his  professions,  in  relation  to  the  religious  welfare  of 
the  empire.  He  regarded,  with  awe,  the  Divine  Providence,  in  the 
course  of  public  affairs  :  he  devoutly  wished  to  propitiate  the  Divine 
favour  on  behalf  of  the  State  :  he  felt  that  Christianity  was  the  reli- 
gion of  order  and  humanity,  and  he  earnestly  desired  to  see  it  every 
where  prevalent.  The  candid  reader  of  Eusebius  and  Socrates, 
while  he  may  disallow  certain  measures,  and  while  he  makes  a  due 
deduction  from  the  encomiums  of  partial  writers,  will  receive,  alto»- 
gether,  a  favourable  impression  of  th«  conduct  of  this  first  Christiasi 
prince. 

Page  207. — . .  .  "donee  sub  Constantino  Imperatore,"  says  Jerome, 
after  mentioning  the  licentious  rites  of  the  Grecian  Avorship,  "  Christi 
evangelio  coruscante,  et  infidelitasuniversarum  gentium,  et  turpetudo 
deleta  est."  Comment,  en  Esaiam,  cap.  2.  If  this  reformation  be  here 
too  largely  stated,  it  was  nevertheless  very  great  and  extensive,  and 
attended  with  the  highest  benefits  to  the  community.  So  vast  a 
revolution  could  not,  however,  have  been  effected  without  the  most 
vigorous  and  peremptory  measures.  Much  as  the  minds  of  men,  in 
that  age,  were  inclined  to  consider  visible  prosperity,  and  especially 
if  it  attended  a  prince  or  public  person  through  life,  as  an  indication 
of  the  Divine  favour  to  the  individual,  a  strong  impression,  corrobo- 
rative of  the  Christian  doctrine,  must  have  been  made  upon  the  Ro- 
man world,  by  the  mere  ftict  of  the  impunity  with  which  the  first 
Christian  emperor  suppressed  the  worship  of  the  gods,  and  put  con- 
tempt upon  their  ministers.  It  was  manifest  that  the  gods  were 
destitute  of  power  to  avenge  themselves  upon  this,  their  bold  enemy. 
ISTay,  in  splendour,  happy  success,  and  long-continued  tranquillity, 
Constantine  greatly  surpassed  any  of  his  predecessors.  Augustine, 
de  Civitate  Dei,  appeals  to  the  instance,  on  this  very  ground.  Nam 
bonus  Deus,  ne  homines  qui  eum  crederent  propter  reternam  vitam 
eolendum,  hos  sublimitates  et  regna  terrena  existimarent  posse  ne- 
minem  consequi,  nisi  daemonibus  supplicet,  quod  hi  spiritus  in  talibus 
multum  valerent,Constantinum  imperatorem  non  supplicantem  dae- 
monibus,  sed  ipsum  verum  Deum  colentem,  tantis  terrenis  implevit 
muneribus,  quanta  optare  nullus  auderet  ....  Diu  imperavit,  uni- 
rersum  orbem  Romanum  unus  Augustus  tenuit  et  defendit ;  in- 
administrandis  et  gerendis  bellis  victoriosissimus  fuit ;  in  tyrannis 
opprimendis  per  omnia  prosperatus  est;  grandajvus  a^gritudine  et 
senectute  defunctus  est,  filiis  imperantes  reliquit.  Lib.  v.  cap.  25. 
Eusebius  more  than  once  advances  the  same  argument,  which,  from 
the  frequency  with  which  it  was  employed,  we  may  infer  to  have 
been  found  efficacious.  "  With  loud  voice,"  in  the  instance  of  the 
emperor,  "the  true  God  spake  to  all  men,  calling  upon  them  to 
adcnowledge  him  as.  the  o^^Ly  God^,  and  to  turn  away  from  those 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VT.  343 

that  were  no  gods."  We  may  well  suppose  that  Constantine  was 
himself  confirmed  in  his  faith  by  his  own  prosperity,  and  was,  per- 
haps, in  the  same  manner  emboldened  to  assail  the  ancient  supersti- 
tions of  the  empire  with  the  more  vigour.  Sentiments  of  this  sort 
appear  in  several  of  his  epistles  and  speeches,  as  reported  by  Euse- 
bius,  De  Vita  Constantin.  lib.  ii.  cap.  24,  25,  et  passim. 

Neque  ab  idololatriae  distare  haereses,  quum  et  auctoris  el 

Operis  ejusdem  sint,  cujus  et  idololatria,  says  TertuUian  ;  and  the 
church  writers  of  the  age  of  Constantine  expressly  affirm  heresy  and 
Bchism  to  be  greater  evils  than  polytheism.  It  is  no  wonder,  there- 
fore, that  the  severities  resorted  to  for  the  suppression  of  the  latter, 
should,  without  scruple,  hare  been  directed  against  the  former  ;  yet 
it  was  chiefly  in  the  following  reigns  that  extreme  coercive  measures 
against  either  idolatry  or  heresy,  were  employed.  Constantine's 
mode  of  proceeding  in  suppressing  the  pagan  worship  is  described 
by  his  biographer  ;  Vita,  lib.  iii.  cap.  54,  et  seq.  Against  heretics  and 
schismatics  he  issued  reproofs,  vehement  sometimes  in  style,  but  he 
seldom  went  further  than  to  prohibit  their  conventicles,  and  to  con- 
fiscate their  oratories  or  chapels  to  the  Catholic  Church.  Vita,  lib. 
iii.  cap.  65.  The  language  attributed  to  the  emperor  in  these  in- 
stances indicates,  as  we  think,  an  inward  conflict  between  the  mild- 
ness and  moderation  of  his  personal  dispositions,  and  his  sense  of 
duty,  as  suggested  to  him  by  his  episcopal  advisers.  His  successors 
were  far  less  scrupulous. 

Page  209. — The  writings  of  Augustine  andof  Chrysostom,  not  to 
mention  others,  abound  in  passages  attesting  the  immensity  of  the 
cares  and  labours  of  a  judicial  kind,  in  which  a  bishop  was  involved, 
as  arbitrator  of  secular  interests  ;  (see  especially  Chrysostom,  de 
Sacerdotio,  lib.  iii.)  nor  was  this  evil  of  recent  origin  :  as  a  cnstcm  it 
takes  its  date  from  tlie  apostolic  times  ;  as  an  evil,  from  the  age  in 
which  worldly  ambition  had  generally  tainted  the  minds  of  the 
clergy ;  and  this  happened  long  before  the  political  triumph  of 
Christianity.  On  the  subject  of  episcopal  jurisdiction,  what  it  in- 
cluded, and  in  what  manner  exercised,  m  the  third  and  fourth  cen- 
turies, the  Apostolic  Constitutions  aiford  various  information:  the 
second  book  relates  chiefly  to  this  part  of  the  bishop's  duties,  and 
may  be  referred  to  as  sufficient  evidence  of  the  extent  of  the  authority 
vested  in  him,  and  of  the  almost  unlimited  influence  which,  as  arbi- 
trator and  judge,  he  exercised.  The  fact  not  being  matter  of  dispute, 
to  adduce  quotations  would  serve  no  useful  purpose.  The  English 
reader  may  find,  in  Hallam's  Middle  Ages,  chap.  vii.  a  concise  account 
of  this  branch  of  ecclesiastical  power. 

Page  214. — The  third  oration  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  entitled 
crTJ7A<T5yri)c<7g,  and  the  foixrih,  exhaust  the  eloquence  of  that 
accomplished  churchman,  and  indeed  seem  to  spend  all  the  resources 
of  the  copious  language  he  employed  in  the  expression  of  indignant 
sentiments.  But  though  the  Greeks  must  bear  the  palm  as  orators, 
it  is  to  the  Latin  Fathers  we  must  look  for  the  indications  of  the  real 
ascendency  of  the  Church,  in  the  fourth  century.     The  Greeks  were 


344  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII. 

the  best  preachers,  orators,  and  writers;  but  the  Latins  were  the 
best  and  the  boldest  promoters  of  church  authority.  Among  these, 
Ambrose  of  Milan,  holds  no  mean  place  ;  it  is  from  his  writings  that 
we  may  the  most  readily  derive  an  idea  of  the  ecclesiastical  system, 
practices,  and  spirit  of  this  time  ;  and  especially  from  his  epistles. 


APPENDIX  TO   SECTION  YII. 

In  seeking  for  evidence  concerning  the  spirit  and  practices  of  the 
Romish  Despotism,  we  should  observe  two  rules,  both  clearly  etjuit- 
ablc  and  necessary ;  the  first  is  to  look  to  the  pages  of  those  writers 
who  have  occupied  high  stations  in  the  Church,  and  whose  decisions 
are  its  law ;  and  the  second  is  to  confine  ourselves  to  those  times  dur- 
ing which  the  Church  was  in  her  prosperity,  and  enjoyed  an  unre- 
stricted authority.  The  breaking  out  of  the  Reformation  gave  a 
new,  and  an  exasperated  character  to  all  the  acts  and  expressions  of 
the  Papacy.  From  that  time  forward  the  Church  spoke  in  refe- 
rence to,  or  in  tacit  recollection  of,  her  new  and  formidable  adversa- 
ries. She  was  no  longer  purely  spontaneous.  The  difference  of 
style  and  feeling  occasioned  by  the  Lutheran  schism,  is  very  clearly 
perceptible  in  the  Romanist  writers  of  all  classes;  for  while  the  bold 
and  intemperate  are  far  more  extravagant  and  impudent  than  were 
their  predecessors  of  the  same  stamp,  the  reasonable,  the  conciliato- 
ry, and  the  philosophic,  labour  with  the  utmost  diligence  and  ingenu- 
ity to  soften  the  features  of  the  Romish  tyranny,  to  excuse  his  intole- 
rance, to  recommend,  on  general  grounds,  its  superstitions,  find  to 
bring  it,  as  far  as  possible,  into  accordance  Avith  the  spirit  of  Christi- 
anity, and  with  the  feelings  and  usages  of  modern  times.  But  as 
we  are  bound,  in  fairness,  to  reject  the  exaggerated  Romanism  of  the 
one  class  of  modern  writers,  so  should  we  pass  by,  as  unauthentic 
and  spurious,  the  novel  liberality,  and  the  spirituality  of  the  other. 
We  do  not  ask  Fenelon,  or  Pascal,  or  the  Jansenists,  or  Dr.  Doyle, 
or  Mr.  Butler,  what  Romanism  is,  any  more  than  we  put  that  ques- 
tion to  certain  infimious  Spanish  Jesuits  of  the  seventeenth  century; 
but  to  turn  to  the  popes  and  the  authentic  doctors  of  the  middle  ages. 
The  principles  avowed  by  these  high  authorities,  and  the  practices 
founded  upon  those  principles,  are  consistent  one  with  another  ;  are 
necessary  parts  of  the  great  ecclesiastical  theory ;  and  are  such  as 
must,  in  every  age,  be  professed  and  followed  by  the  Romish  Church, 
where  she  enjoys  full  liberty,  and  is  not  compelled  to  adapt  herself  to 
political  necessities.  Protestantism  annihilated,  and  princes  once 
more  brought  down  to  their  place,  as  the  obedient  sons  and  champions 
of  the  Church,  and  then  this  Church  would  be,  and  rnnsl  be,  the  very 
same  in  spirit  and  in  practice  that  it  was  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries.  In  truth  a  modern  catholic  country,  as  for  example,  Spaiu, 


APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  VII.  345 

Ireland,  or  Belgium,  would  altogether  gain,  as  much  as  it  would  lose, 
in  exchanging iji/ra-Lutheran,  for*wp-a-Lutheran  Catholicism.  That 
which  makes  modern  popery  more  tolerable,  and  in  some  respects 
less  pernicious  to  a  people  than  ancient  popery  was,  is  precisely  that 
admixture  of  better  notions  which  it  has  furtively  obtained  from  Pro- 
testantism. But  all  such  mitigations  and  corrections  the  consistent 
Romanist  must  regard  as  adulterations,  and  must  wish  to  exclude 
and  repel.  The  Romish  Church  can  never  admit  the  maxim — "  fas 
est  ab  hoste  doceri." 

The  author  will  now  present  to  the  reader  some  few  promiscuous 
passages  from  authors  who,  if  any,  are  to  be  deemed  aiithoriiies  in 
Romanism — Romanism  in  its  best  times.  We  take  three  illustri- 
ous churchmen,  contemporaries,  and  the  most  noted  and  honoured  of 
the  papal  champions ;  two  of  them  popes,  and  one  the  spiritual  father 
of  a  pope,  namely.  Innocent  III.,  Gregory  IX.,  and  St.  Bernard.  (In 
quoting  the  Epistles  of  Innocent  III.,  the  author  takes  the  Paris  edi- 
tion, 16S2,  of  S.  Baluzius  :  for  Gregory  IX. — the  Decretals,  Leyden, 
1584,  ad  exemplar  Romanum  diligentur  recognitae:  for  St.  Bernard 
— Mabillon's  edition,  Paris,  1690.) 

The  expositors  of  prophetic  symbols  have  ordinarily  assumed  that 
the  secular  authority  was  typified  by  the  sun,  and  the  ecclesias- 
tical by  the  moon  ;  but  Innocent  III.  reverses  these  emblems.  Sicut 
universitatis  conditor  Deus  duo  magna  lummaria  in  firmamento  ccefi 
constituit,  luminare  majus,  ut  prasesset  diei,  et  luminare  minus,  u6 
nocti  prreesset ;  sic  ad  ifirmamentum  universalis  Ecclesia;,  quae  coeli 
nomine  nuncupatnr,  duas  magnas  instituit  dignitates,  majorem,  qu© 
quasi  diebus  animabus  prreesset,  etminorem,  quae  quasi  noctibus  prr^ 
esset  corporibus :  qu?e  sunt  pontificalis  auctoritas,  et  regalis  potcstas. 
Porro  sicut  luna  lumen  suum  a  sole  sortitur,  quce  re  vera  minor  est 
illo  quantitate  simul  et  qualitate,  situ  pariter  eteffectU;  sic  regahs 
potestas  ab  auctoritate,  pontificali  sure  sortitur  dignitatis  splendorem; 
cujus  conspectui  qiianto  magis  inhreret,  tanto  minori  lumine  decora- 
tur,  et  quo  plus  ab  ejus  elongatur  aspectu,  eo  plus  proficit  in  splen- 
dore.  Utaque  vero  protestas  sive  primatus  sedem  in  Italia  meruit 
obtinere,  quse  dispositione  divina  super  tmiversas  provincias  obtinuit 
principatum.  Et  ideo  licet  universas  provincias  nostrae  provisionis 
aciem  extendere  debeamus,  specialiter  tamen  Italia?  paterna  nos  con- 
venit  solicitudine  providere,  in  qua  Christianre  religionis  fundamen- 
tum  extitit,  et  per  apostolicoe  sedis  primatum  sacardotii  simul  et  regni 
prreminet  principatus. — Tom.  i.  p.  235. 

This  point  of  the  superiority  of  the  sacerdotal  and  pontifical  dig- 
nity, as  compared  with  the  secular  and  regal,  this  pope  urges  in  a 
similar  style  upon  the  Emperor  Alexius,  who  had  imposed  certain 
humiliations  upon  the  patriarch  and  clergy  of  Constantinople,  and 
had  presumed  to  make  clerical  persons  amenable  to  the  civil  au- 
thority. Gluod  autem  sequitur  (1  Peter  ii.  13)  Regi  tanqiiam  pr^cel- 
lenti,  non  negamus  quin  praecellat  in  temporahbus  Imperator,  illis 
dumtaxat  qui  ab  illo  recipiunt  temporalia.  Sed  Pontifex  in  spiritu- 
Rlibus  antecellit,  quae  tanto  sunt  temporalibus  digniora  quanto  corpo- 
ri  est  anima  prseferenda.  It  was  thus  that,  on  the  ground  of  the  in- 
finite superiority  of  religious  interests,  the  Papacy  reared  its  claim 


346  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII. 


to  exercise  a  paramount  authority  on  earth,  and  actually  trampled 
on  the  neck  of  kings.  Innocent  goes  on  to  convict  Alexius  of  his  er- 
ror in  presuming  to  touch  clerical  criminals  with  the  secular  sword  ; 
and  his  method  of  expounding  Scripture  might  make  one  believe  that 
he  had  leai-ned  theology  in  the  school  of  the  Rabbis,  duod  autem 
sequitur  ad  vindictum  malefactorum,  laudem  vero  bonorum,  intelligen- 
dum  non  est  quod  Rex  vel  imperaior  super  omnes  et  bonos  et  malos 
potestatem  acceperit,  sed  in  eos  solummodo  qui  utentes  gladio,  ejus 
sunt  jurisdictioni  commissi,  juxta  quod  Veritas  ait:  omnes  qui  accepe- 
rint  gladium,  gladio  peribunt.  Non  enim  potest  aut  debet  quisquam 
servum  alterius  judicare,  cum  servus  suo  domino,  secundiam  Aposto- 
lum,  stet  aut  cadat.   Ad  id  etiam  induxistiquod  licet  Moses  et  Aaron 

secundiim  carnem  fratres  extiterint,  &c Dictum  est  etiam  in 

lege  divina ;  Diis  non  detrafies,  et  principem  populi  tui  non  maledices. 
Ctuae  Sacerdotes  Regibus  anteponens,  istos  deos  et  iilos  principes  ap- 
pelavit.  Praeterea  nosse  debueras  quod  fecit  Deusduo; — and  here 
follows  the  same  same  illustration,  as  above,  drawn  from  the  two  ce- 
lestial luminiaries  ....  Hoc  autem  si  prudenter  attenderit  imperato- 
ria  celsitudo,  non  faceret  aut  permit teret  venerabilem  fratrem  Patri- 
archam  Constantinopolitanum,  magnum  quidem  et  honorabile  mem- 
brum  Ecclesiae,  juxta  scabellum  pedum  tuorum  in  sinistra  parte  se- 
dere,  cum  alii  Regcs  et  Principes  Archiepiscopis  et  Episcopis  suis, 
sicut  debent,  reverenter  assurgant,  et  cis  juxta  se  honorabilem  sedem 
assignent.  Nam  et  piissimus  Constnntinus  quantum  honoris  exhi- 
buerit  Sacerdotibus,  tua  sicut  credmius  prudentia  non  ignorat.  This 
is  much  in  the  style  in  which  Ambrose  of  Milan  was  wont  to  school 
Theodosius.  We  m;\y  mention,  in  illustration  of  the  grievance  of 
which,  as  it  seems,  theConstantinopolitan  Patriarch  had  complained, 
that  the  illuminated  Greek  codices  of  the  tenth  and  following  centu- 
ries, not  unfrequently  represent  the  emperor  on  his  throne,  receiving, 
with  condescension,  a  copy  of  the  book  from  a  bishop  or  presbyter, 
who  reverentially  inclines  his  head  in  offering  it  to  the  imperial  hand. 
This  sort  of  obeisance  and  submission,  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  to- 
wards monarchs,  was  found  only  in  the  eastern  empire;  or  very 
rarely  in  the  west. 

Innocent,  who  thus  asserts  the  rights  of  his  brother  of  Constanti- 
nople, when  the  general  credit  of  the  priesthood  is  involved,  vehe- 
mently assails  the  same  brother  on  the  point  of  the  supremacy  of 
Rome,  and  calls  upon  him,  as  he  values  his  s:\lvation,  to  submit  to 
the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  So  in  his  letter  (353)  to  the  Greek  Emperor, 
and  in  the  one  which  follows  to  the  patriarch.  Rcprobata  quondam 
propter  ingratitudinis  vjtium  perfidia  Judeeorum,  el  oblato  synagogae 
(quia  non  cognovit  tempusvisitationis  suce)  libello  repudii,  unam  sibi 
Ecclesiam  ex  gentibus  congregatam,non  habentem  maculem  neque 
rugam,  Dominus  noster  elegit,  juxta  quod  legitur  in  Canticis  Canti- 

corum,  Una  est  electa  mea,  sponsamea,  imwaculalamea Hoca  u- 

tem  Graecorum  populus  non  attendens,  aliam  sibi  confinxit Ecclesiam 
(si  tamen  quae  prreter  unam  est,  Ecclesia  sit  dicenda)  et  ab  Apostoli- 
cce  sedis  unitate  recessit,  necconstitutonem  Domini  nee  Petri  magiste- 
rium  imitatus,  et  inconsutilem  vestum  Domini,  cui  crucifixorum  ma- 
nus  in  aliarum  vestium  divisione  pepercit,  scindere  usque  hodie,  lic^t 


APPENDIX   TO    SECTION   VII.  347 

frustra,  conatur;  non  attendens  quod  una  tantum  extitit  area,  intra 
quam  sub  uno  rectore  quicunque  tuerunt,  leguntur  in  cataclismo  sal- 
vaLi :  qui  autem  extra  ipsam  inventi  sunt,  omnes  in  deluvio  perierunt 
Cluia  igitur  id  in  scandalem  nostrum  et  fidei  Chrislianie  redundat 
dispendium,  nee  jam  possumus  vitare  clamores  Ecclesiae  generalis 
quaj  nosei  proedecessores  nostros  negliagenlffi  ac  tarditatis  redarguit 
monemus  frat.  tu  vm  et  exhor.  in  Domino,  per  Apostolica  tibi  scripta 
mandantes,  quatenus  omnimodam  solicitudinem  et  efficacem  operara 
intcrponas,  ut  Graicorum  luiiversitas  redeat  ad  Ecclesiae  unitatem, 
et  ad  matrem  filia  revertata,  et  fiat  juxta  verbum  Dominifunum  ovile, 
et  unus  Pastor To  all  tliis  the  patriarch  replies  with  spi- 
rit and  humility : — Et  indulge  mihi,  saeerrime  Papa  si  nunc  primo 
hunc  patriarchalem  sacrum  chronum  me  ascendentem,  nondum  de 
tali  hoc  dubiatatione  diligentum  solutionem  addiscere  accidit  .... 
Bat  his  argument,  which  indeed  exhibits  much  good  sense,  is  met  by 
Innocent  with  manifold  reasons,  of  which  the  following  may  serve  as 
a  specimen  ; — Petro  non  soliam  universam  Ecclcsiam  sed  totum  reli- 
quit  seculem  gubernandum.  Cluod  ex  eo  etiam  evidenter  apparet, 
quia  cum  Dominus  apparuisset  in  littore  discipulis  naviganiibus, 
sciens  Petrus  quod  Dominus  esset  se  misit  in  mare,  ac  aliis  navigio 
venientibus,  ipse  sine  beneficio  navis  ad  Dominum  festinavit.  Ciim 
enim  mare  mundum  designet,  juxta  verbum  Psalmistre  dicentis.  Hoc 
mare  magtium  et  spatioswn,  illic  repWia  quorum  non  est  nmntrus  ;  per 
hoc  quod  Petrus  se  misit  in  mare,  priviligum  expressit  pontificii  sin- 
gularis,  per  quod  universum  orbem  svTsceperat  gubernandum;  cete- 
ris Apostolis  ut  vehiculo  nivis  contentis,  cum  nulli  eorum  uoiversus 
fuerit  orbis  commissus,  sed  singulus  singulre  provincice  vel  Ecclesiae 
potiijs  deputatae.  Iterum  etiam  ut  se  unicum  Christi  Vicarium  de- 
signaret,  ad  Dominum  super  aquas  riiaris  mirabiliter  ambulan- 
tem  et  ipse  super  aquas  maris'  mirabiliter  ambulavit.  Nam  cura 
aquce  multre  sint  populi  multi,  congregationes  que  aquarum  sint  ma- 
ria,  per  hoc  quod,  Petrus  super  aquas  maris  incessit,  super  universos 
populos  se  potestatem  accepiisse  monstravit  ....  Sane  cum  per 
navem  Petri  Ecclesiafigurelur,  tunc  Petrus  juxta  prreceptum  domi- 
nicum  navim  duxit  in  altum,  laxans  prsedicationis  retia  in  capturam, 
ciim  ibi  posuit  Eccles.ie  principatum  ubi  vigebat  secularis  potentiae 
altitude  et  imperialis  monarchia  residebat,  cui  fere  singulee  nationes 
sicut  flumina  mari  tributa  solvebant  certis  temponbus  constituta. 
Much  of  the  same  sort  follows;  and  the  paternal  epistle  ends  with  a 
peremptory  and  threatening  summons,  requiring  the  Conslantino- 
politan  patriarch  to  attend  a  general  council,  to  be  holden  at  Rome, 
and  there  to  do  homage  to  St  Peter's  chair. 

Frivolous  as  we  must  think  the  arguments  of  Innocent,  his  conclu- 
sions were  full  of  a  tremendous  meaning,  and  while  he  spoke  as  a 
lamb,  he  ruled  the  world  as  a  lion.  Indeed,  apart  from  the  comment 
whicli  history  furnishes  upon  documents  of  tnis  sort,  one  might  im- 
agine some  of  these  haughty  and  sanguinary  Pontiffs  to  have  been 
patterns  of  humility  and  gentleness.  Even  those  bulls  and  edicts 
■which,  in  their  effect,  deluged  kingdoms  with  blood,  are  moderate  in 
languagp,  and  breathe  a  placid  and  sci-ip:ural  fervour.  In  making  our 
acquaintance  with  certain  illustrious  and  zealous  churchmen,  ^irsf, 


34S  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION   VII. 

through  the  medium  of  history,  and  afterwards  by  consulting  their 
extant  writings,  a  Uvely  surprise  is  felt  in  finding  that  men,  whose 
hands  we  know  to  have  reeked  blood,  were,  in  their  Epistles  and 
their  homilies,  so  honey-mouthed  and  saint-like.  Every  reader  of 
history  knows  what  practical  interpretation  Innocent  put  upon  the 
simple  fact  of  Peter's  leaving  his  fishing  tackle  and  dragging  his  boat 
ashore,  and  that  it  meant  nothing  less  than  that  his  successors,  turn- 
ing away  from  purely  spiritual  cares,  might  make  themselves 
universal  lords  of  the  bodies  as  well  as  souls  of  men.  This  abso- 
hite  secular  sovereignty  is  an  essential  element  of  the  papal  theory. 
It  is  only  as  universal  despot  that  the  Vicar  of  Christ  can  fulfil  his 
functions,  and  effectively  rule  the  household  of  faith.  Modern  con- 
cessions on  this  point  are  only  so  many  inconsistencies,  that  must  be 
redeemed  and  obliterated  when  the  time  comes  for  building  up  anew 
the  tabernacle  of  St.  Peter. 

Innocent  III.  well  knew  that,  although  in  some  of  his  measures  he 
might  go  beyond  the  line  of  his  predecessors,  he  did  not  a  whit  trans- 
gress in  principle  and  doctrine,  what  they  had  uniformly  professed. 
The  unbounded  and  absolutely  irresponsible  authority  of  the  pope 
had  centuries  before,  been  maintained  in  the  most  explicit  terms. 
Culpas  (Papae)  redarguere  praesumit  mortalium  nullus;  quia  cunc- 
tos  ipse  judicaturus  a  nemine  est  judicandus.  Boniface  the  Martyr, 
Et  ex  annalibus  Francorum,  ex  Anostasio,  et  ex  sacris  rilibus  Ro- 
mance Ecclest  proditum  est  in  concione  quam  Romoe  convocavit 
Carolus  Magnus,  Rex  Galliarum,  ad  examinanda  objecta  in  Leo- 
nem  Poutificem  Maximum,  A  rchiepiscopos,  Episcopos,  et  Abbates 
unanimiter  dixisse;  nos  sedem  Apostolicam,  quoe  est  caput  omnium 
Dei  Ecclesiarum,  judicare  non  audemus,  nam  ab  ipsa  omnes  et  vica- 
rio  suo  judicamur ,  ipsa  autem  a  nemine  judicatur. 

In  his  procedens,  (that  is  in  gems  and  silks,)  says  St.  Bernard, 
addressing  his  pontifical  son  and  pupil,  Eugene  III.,  tectus  auro, 
vectus  equoalbo,  stipatusmilite,  circumstrependibus  septus  iiiinistris, 
successisti  non  Petro,  sed  Constantino.  Consulo  toleranda  pro  tem- 
pore, non  affectanda  pro  debito.  Ad  ea  te  potius  incito  quorum  te 
scio  debitorem.  Etsi  purpuratus,  etsi  deauratus  incidens,  non  est 
tamen  quod  horreas  operam  curamve  pastoralem  pastoris,  non  est 
qnod  erubesces  evangelium.  Gtuamquam  si  volens  evangelizes,  inter 
apostolos  quidem  etiam  gloria  est  tibi.  Evangelizare  pascere  est. 
Fac  opus  evangelists  et  pastoris  opus  implesti.  Dracones,  inquis, 
me  mones  pascere  et  scorpiones,  non  oves  ;  propter  hoc,  inquam  ma- 
gis  ajrgredere  eos  ;  sed  verbo,  non  ferro.  Gluid  tu  denuo  usurpare 
gl?vdium  tentes,  quem  semel  jussus  es  ponere  invaginam?  Cluem 
tamen  qui  tuum  negat,  non  satis  mihi  videtur  attendere  verbum  Do- 
mini dicentis  ;  converte  gladium  tuum  in  vaginam.  Tuus  ergo  et 
ipse,  tuo  forsilan  nutu ;  et  si  non  tua  mami  evaginandus.  Alioquin  si 
nuUo  modo  ad  te  pertineret,  et  is  dicentibus  apostolis ;  ecce  gladii 
dure  hie  ;  non  respondissit  Dominus  ;  Satis  est ;  sed,  nimis  est.  Uter- 
que  ergo  Ecclesice  et  spirituvdis  scilicet  gladius,  et  materialis,  sed  is 
quidem  pro  Ecclesia  ;  ille  vero  et  ab  Ecclesia  exerendus  est.  Ille 
sacerdotis  ;  is  militis  manu  ;  sed  sane  ad  nutum,  sacerdotis,  &c. — 
De  Consideratione. 

Here  was  this  seraphic  monk,  and  we  must  believe  him  to  have 


Al>PENDlX    TO    SECTION    VII.  S4^ 

feeeYi  a  good  man,  giving  warrant  for  that  nod  at  which  kings  and 
barons  drew  their  swords — the  sword  of  the  Church,  and  which  was 
not  to  be  sheathed  until  rivers  of  blood  had  sodden  the  soil,  both  of 
the  East  and  the  West.  The  hoirors  which  history  has  connected  with 
the  pontificate  of  Innocent  being  put  out  of  view,  one  might  be 
amused  with  the  ingenuity  of  his  perversions  of  Scripture.  The 
severities  put  in  force  against  the  French  heretics  having  compelled 
them  to  conceal  their  Bibles  and  their  meetings,  with  the  utmost  care, 
this  pope  enjoins  the  clergy  of  the  infected  districts  to  beware  of  such 
works  of  darkness.  The  study  of  holy  Scripture  is,  indeed,  he  says, 
in  itself  commendable ;  but  not  the  profanation  of  Scripture  by  its 
coming  into  the  hands  of  the  common  people  ; — *'  it  was  not  for  beasts 
to  touch  the  mount  of  God."  Unde  recte  fuit  olim  in  lege  divina 
statutum  ut  bestia  cpire  montem  tetigerat,  lapidetur  ;  ne  videlicet 
simplex  et  indoctus  prresumat  ad  sublimitatem  Scripturffi  sacrre  per- 
tingere,  vel  earn  aliis  prredicare.  It  appears  that  certain  of  these 
heretics  (Albigenses)  having  got  possession  of  the  Scriptures  in  their 
own  tongue,  and  become  fomiliar  with  apostolic  Christianity,  had 
presumed  to  hold  disputations  with  some  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  and 
had  confounded  these  unlearned  clerks.  This  was  an  evil  not  to  be 
endured.  Non  est  tamen  simplicibus  sacerdotibus  etiam  a  scholasti- 
cis  detrahendum,  cum  in  eis  sacerdotale  ministerium  debeathonorari. 
Propter  quod  Dominus  in  lege  prsecepit,  Diis  non  detrahes,  sacer- 
dotes  intelligens,  qui  propter  excellentiam  ordinis  et  officii  dignitatem 
deorum  nomine  nuncupantur.  These  and  other  evils  having  been 
mentioned  and  reproved,  Innocent  lovingly  entreats  those  to  wliorn 
he  writes  to  forsake  all  such  fUse  ways,  and  concludes— Q.uia  nisi 
correctionem  nostram  et  admonitionem  paternam  receperitis  humili- 
ter  et  devote,  nos,  post  oleum  infundemus  et  vinum,  severitatem 
ecclesiasticum  apponentes  ;  ut  qui  noluerint  obedire  spontanei, 
disc  ait  acquiescere  vel  inviti. — Tom.  i.  p.  434. 

The  epistle  which  follows  the  one  just  quoted,  exhibits  far  more 
moderation  than  our  historical  notion  of  this  pontiff  would  lead  us  to 
expect;  indeed,  this  comparative  miidness,  as  we  have  already  said, 
pervades  most  of  his  betters.  It  is  to  the  fundamental  principle  and 
theory  of  the  Papacy,  rather  than  to  the  individual  ferocity  of  popes, 
that  we  are  to  attribute  the  sanguinary  measures  by  which,  from  age 
to  age,  it  has  been  sustained  Very  many  of  these  epistles,  which, 
in  f\cr,  carried  fire  and  sword  into  provinces,  contain  little  but  what 
might  be  looked  for  in  the  pastoral  advices  of  some  mild  and  enlight- 
ened Irish  Catholic  bishop  of  the  present  day.  A  reference  to  these 
epistles,  and  to  other  Avritings  of  the  same  class,  is  to  be  made,  not 
because  Ave  may  thence  draw  startling  and  characteristic  specimens 
of  turgid  comminations  and  thundering  anathemas  ;  but  rather  on 
accouiU  of  the  suavity,  the  calmness,  and  the  pateiaial  dignity  and 
solicitude  Avhich  they  display.  Read  the  melancholy  story  of  Ray- 
mond, Count  of  Toulouse,  and  then  turn  to  the  epistUs  of  Innocent 
III.,  and  from  a  comparison  of  the  one  with  the  other,  learn  what  is 
th  i't  system  which,  while  it  breathes  soft  whispers  of  love,  slips  the 
doGS  of  cruelty  to  gorge  on  human  flesh. 

iX^evertheless,  when  the  occasion  was  urgent,  Innocent  so  expressed 

30 


$50  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION   VII, 

his  meaning  as  to  leave  no  room  to  doubt  what  were  his  intentions. 
The  readei-  may  take  a  specimen  of  this  son ;  it  occurs  in  the  epistle 
that  was  carried  by  Rainerius  and  Guido  to  the  bisliop  and  nobles 
of  Languedoc.  Inter  quos  (hojreticos)  in  provincia  vestra  quosdam, 
qui  Vaidenses,  Catari,  el  Paterini  dicunlur,  et  ahos  quoshbet  qui- 
buscunque  nominibus  appeilatos,  in  tantum  jam  accepimus  pullu- 
lasse,  ut  innumeros  populos  sui  erroris  laqueis  inetieiini,  et  fermento 
coi-rui^erint  folsitatis.  Cum  igitur  ad  copiendas  hujusmodi  vulpes 
parvulas,  quce  demoliuntur  vineam  Domini  f^abaoth,  species  quideni 
habenles  diversas,  sed  caudas  ad  invicem  colligatas,  quia  de  vanitate 
conveniunt  in  id  ipsum,  utvergaMoysi  maleticorium  phantasmata 
devoret,  dilectum  filium  fratrem,  Rainerium,  virum  probaise  vita3  et 
eonversationis  honesiBs,  poteniemdivino  muncve  in  opere  et  seimone, 
ac  cum  eo  dilectum  filium  fratrem  Guidonem,  virum  Deum  timen- 
tem,  et  slvidentem  operibus  charitatis,  ad  partes  ipsas  duxerimus 
deslinandos  ;  fraternitati  veslrte  per  apostolica  scripta  mandamus, 
et  dislricte  praecipimus  quatenus  eos  benigno  recipientes  et  tractan- 
tes  affectu,  taliter  eis  contra  haireticos  asLisiaLis,  ut  per  ipsos  ab  er- 
rore  viae  suae  revocentur  ad  Dominum ;  et  si  qui  forte  converti  non 
poLerant,  ne  pars  sync  era  trahatur,  de  veslrJs  finibus  excludantur  ; 
ut  terra  vestra  hujusmodi  minisiris  Sathanag  penitus  eifugatis,  ver- 
bum  praedicationis  vestrae  gratanter  recipial,  et  erit  fructuni  tempc- 
ribus  suis  ....  Ad  haec,  nobilibus  viris  Principibus,  Comitibus,  et 
universis  Baronibus  et  Magnatibus  in  vestra  provincia  constitutis 
proecipiendo  mandamus,  et  in  remissjonem  injungimus  peccatorum, 
ut  ipsos  benigne  recipitntes  pariter  et  devote,  eis  contra  hasreticos 
tam  viriliter  et  potent er  assisla)it,  ut  ad  vindictam  malefactorum, 
laudem  vero  bonorum,  potestalem  sibi  traditam  probentur  laudabili- 
ter,  exercere,  et  si  qui  heereticorum  ab  errore  suo  ccmmoniti  nolue- 
rint  resipiscere,  postquam  per  piaedictum  fratrem  Rainerium  fuerint 
excommunicationis  senteniia  innodati,  eorum  bona  confiscent,  et  de 
terra  sua  proscribant.  Et  si  post  interdictum  ejus  in  terra  ipsorum 
praesumpserint  commorari,  graviiis  animadvertant  in  eos,  sicut  decet 
Principes  Christianos,  ut  area  foederis  praecedente  cum  tubis,  ac 
Josue  sequente  cum  populis,  utrisque  pariter  conclamantibus,  muri 
corrunnt  Jericho,  fiatque  perpetuum  anathema  ;  ita  quod  si  quis  de 
illo  vel  regulam  auream  furari  praesumserit,  cum  Achan  filio  Carmi 
lapidibus  obruatur.  Dedimus  autem  dicto  fratri  R.  liberam  faculta- 
tem  ut  eos  ad  id  per  excomnmnicationis  sententiam  et  interdictum 
terrae  appellatione  remota  compellat  :  neo  volumus  ipsos  aegre  ferre 
aliquatenus  vel  moleste  si  eos  ad  id  exequendum  tam  distincte  com- 
pelli  praecipimus,  ciim  ad  nil  amplius  intendamus  uti  severitatis  judi- 
cio,  quam  ad  exterpaiidos  hasreticos  qui  non  nobis  substantiam  tem- 
poralem  sed  spiritualem  vitam  surripere  moliuntur.  Nam  qui  fidem 
adimit,  vitam  furatur.     Justus  enim  ex  fide  vivii.— Tom,  i.  p.  51. 

This  is  the  genuine  logic  of  the  Pvomish  Church,  and  from  which 
it  can  never  depart  without  flagrant  inconsistency.  "  The  just  shall 
live  by  faith  ;"  to  rob  a  people,  then,  of  their  faith,  is  to  rob  them  of 
life—life  eternal ;  and  these  plunderers  and  destroyers  of  souls,  the 
heretics,  ought,  without  mercy,  to  be  extirpated.  Nor  the  heretics 
tliemselves  only,  but  Avhoever  favours,  shelters,  or  pities  them.  Con- 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII.  351 

tra  defensores,  rcceptatores,  fautores,  et  credentes  haereticorum,  Inno- 
cent promulgates  his  edict  of  excommunication,  confiscation,  banish- 
ment, deprivation  ;  declaring  all  such  hearers  or  receivers  of  heretics 
to  be  incapable  of  public  offices,  incompetent  to  bequenth  their  effects, 
or  to  inherit,  to  give  evidence  in  courts,  or  to  sue  others  for  their 
right,  or  to  defend  themselves  from  wrong  or  violence.  Pity  shown 
to  such  was  treason  against  the  Lord  ;  ciim  longe  sit  gravius  reternam 
quam  temporalem  Ifcdere  majestatem.  The  modern  apologists  of 
the  Papacy,  who  pretend  that  these  severities  belonged  to  the  times, 
not  to  the  system,  should  show  that  they  are  inconsistent  with  that 
system,  and  that  the  doctrines  advanced  in  the  worst  ages,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  enemies  of  the  Church,  have  not  been  professed  uniformly 
by  the  Church.  The  contrary  is  most  certainly  true  ;  for  there  is 
nothing  in  the  Epistles  of  Innocent  IIL,  which  may  not  be  sustained 
by  the  language  of  all  eminent  churclmien  of  the  seven  or  eight  pre- 
ceding centuries. 

The  Decretals  of  Gregory  IX.  embody  the  principles  of  the  Pa- 
pacy, and  the  decisions  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  pontiffs  ;  and  they 
present,  in  a  compact  form,  as  well  the  spirit  as  the  usages  of  the 
Romish  Church,  such  as  it  was  in  its  briglitest  era.  The  very  words 
of  Augustine,  and  other  distinguished  fathers,  of  Leo  I.,  Gregory  I., 
Gregory  VII.,  and  of  the  Urbans,  Adrians,  and  Innocents,  are  here 
adopted  and  incorporated,  so  as  to  form  a  consistent  mass  of  autho* 
ritative  rules,  for  the  guidance  of  the  Church  Universal.  It  is  to  this 
collection,  much  rather  than  to  the  writings  of  modern  Romanists, 
that  we  should  look  for  the  idea  of  the  papal  superstition.  These 
Decretals  exhibit  the  Christianity  of  Europe,  such  as  it  was  from  tho 
time  of  the  withdrawment  of  the  Imperial  court  from  Italj'-,  until  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Lutheran  Reformation  ;  and  such  as  it  is  in  all 
ages  and  countries,  and  must  be  Avhile  its  fundamental  principles  are 
adhered  to.  Romish  Christianity  has  stooped  to  conquer  in  India, 
it  has  stooped  in  China,  it  has  stooped  in  France,  and  it  stoops  in 
Ireland  ;  but  Romish  Christianity  is  itself  unaltered  and  unalterable; 
nothing  can  be  more  idle  than  to  talk  of  it  as  essentially  amended. 

A  very  few  specimens  from  the  massive  volume  of  the  Decretals 
may  be  enough  for  the  reader  ;  and  we  may  take  them  promis- 
cuously. 

Towards  Saracens  and  Jews,  the  Church  often  showed  a  degree 
of  tenderness ;  and  professed  that  their  error  was  far  less  virulent 
than  that  of  Christian  heretics.  The  Decretals  of  Gregor)'- contain 
many  provisions  in  favour  of  the  Jews,  and  in  fact  secure  to  them 
what  might  be  called — toleration.  Heretics  were  to  be  dealt  with  in 
a  different  manner.  Excommunicamus  itaque,  et  anathematizamus 
omnem  hreresim,  extollentem  se  adversus  banc  sanctam.,  orthodoxani 
et  Catholicam  fidem,  quam  superius  exposuimus;  condemnantes  hse- 
reticos  universDs,  quibuscunque  nominibus  censeantur  ;  facies  qui- 
dem  diversas  habentes,  sed  caudas  ad  invicem  colligatas,  quia  de 
vanitate  conveniunt  in  id  ipsum.  This  general  ana'hema  is,  under 
the  same  head  (Titulus  VII.  de  Hcereticis)  drawn  out  and  expounded, 
and  applied  to  various  cases  and  occasions,  so  as  best  to  secure  the 
purgation  of  infected  districts.     The  maxims  laid  down  at  the  com- 


3i2  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION   VI f. 

mencement  are  sucli  as  these — Dubius  in  fide,  infidelis  est.  Ne.c  eis; 
omnino  credendum  est  qui  fidem  veritatis  ignorant  :  and,  Clui  alios, 
eura  potest,  ab  errorenon  revocat,  seipsum  errore  demonstrat  :  and, 
Clui  auteminventi  fuerint  sola  suspicione  notabiles,  nisi  juxta  consi- 
derationem  suspicionis  qualitatem  personae,  propriam  innocentiam 
congrua  purgatione  monstraverint,.  anatliematis  gladio  feriatitur,  et 
usque  ad  satisfactionem  condignam  ab  omnibus  evitentur  ;  ita  quod 
si  per  annum  in  excoramunicatione  perstiterint,  ex  tunc  velut  haj- 
retici  condemnentur :  it  is  moreover  as  a  principle  affirmed  that, 
Dominus  Papa  principem  secularera  deponere  potest,  propter 
Aasresim. 

I'his  power  of  deposing  kings  may  now  be  disclaimed ,  but  the  ar- 
gument by  which,  in  an  epistle  to  the  French  king.  Innocent  main- 
tains it,  involves  no  assumption  whatever  which  the  consistent  Ro- 
manist can  disown.  The  infinite  importance  of  religious  interests, 
and  the  universal  pastoral  authority  of  the  pope,  and  the  sacred  obli- 
gation he  is  under  to  uphold  and  preserve  the  true  faith,  at  whatever 
cost  or  peril,  leave  him  at  no  liberty  to  do  otherwise  than  depose  (if 
he  has  the  power  to  do  so)  an  heretical  prince.  To  refrain  from  ex- 
erting this  power  would  be  to  partake  of  the  sin,  and  to  share  the 
damnation  of  the  heretic.  If  popes  do  not  noAv  depose  heretical 
princes,  it  is  for  the  simple  reason  that  heretical  princes  will  not  now 
be  so  deposed. 

These  Decretals  reject  indignantly  the  allegation  that  popes  are 
subject,  in  any  sense,  to  the  decrees  of  councils: — Cluasi  Romance 
Ecclesise  legem  concilia  ulla  pr?efixerint :  cum  omnia  concilia  per  Ro- 
mance Ecclesire  auctoritatem  et  facta  sint,  et  robur  acceperint,  et  in 
eorimi  statutis  Romani  Pontificis  patenter  excipiatur  auctoritas :  and 
in  the  same  style  they  exclude  the  interference  of  princes  in  church 
affairs.  Porro  cum  laicis  nulla  sit  de  spiritualibus  concedendi  vel  dis- 
ponendi  facultas;  Imperialis  eoncessio  quantumcunque  generaliter 
fiat,  neminem  potest  a  solutione  decimarum  eximere,  quae  divina  con- 
stitutione  debentur.  After  the  annointing  of  bishops  at  their  conse- 
cration has  been  described,  and  the  reasons  and  the  scriptural  autho- 
rity of  every  pai-t  of  the  ceremony  has  been  given,  it  is  added — Unde 
in  Veteri  Testamento  non  solum  ungebatur  sacerclns,  sed.  etiam  rex 
et  propheta:  sicut  in  libro  Regum,  Dominus  prnecepit  HelitC  .... 
Sed  ubi  Jesus  Nazarenus  (quem  unxit  Deus  Spiritu  Sancto,  sicut  in 
Actibus  Apostolorura  legitur)  unctus  est  oleo  pietatis,  prae  consorti- 
bus  suis,  qui  secundum  Apostolum  est  caput  Ecclesire,  quoe  est  cor- 
pus ipsius,  principls  unctio  a  capite  ad  brachium  est  translata ;  ut 
princeps  extunc  ungatur  non  in  capite,  sed  in  brachio,  sive  humero, 
velinarmo:  in  quibus  principatus  congrue  designatur,  juxta  iilud 
quod  legitur:  factus  est  principatus  super  humerum  ejus,  &c.  Ad 
quod  etiam  significandum  Samuel  fecit  poni  armum  ante  Saul,  cui 
dederat  locum  in  capite  ante  eos,  qui  fuerunt  invitati.  In  capite  vero 
pontificis  sacramentalis  est  dolibutio  conservata;  quia  personam  ca- 
pitis in  pontificali  officio  repraesentat.  Refert  autem  inter  pontificis. 
et  principis  unctionem:  qui  caput  pontificis  chrismate  consecratur, 
brachium  vero  principis  oleo  delinitur-  ut  ostendatur  quanta  sit  difX 
ferentia  auctoritatem  pontificis  et  principis  potestatem^. 


APPENDIX   TO    SECTION    VII.  353 

The  pontifical  superiority  herein,  and  in  many  other  of  these  De- 
cretals, claimed  over  secular  princes,  is  not  a  prerogative  stretched, 
or  a  dignity  usurped;  but  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  character- 
istic principle  of  the  Papacy,  and  it  is  involved  in  what  we  have 
stated  as  the  first  element  of  its  theory,  namely,  the  infinite  import- 
ance of  whatever  relates  to  religion  ;  and  by  inference,  the  subordi- 
nation of  whatever  is  temporal  and  earthly.  A  very  large  portion 
6f  this  collection  of  decisions  lays  down  the  law  concerning  that  con- 
trol oTer  persons,  property,  and  ciril  privileges,  which  the  Church 
assumed  to  exert,  on  the  ground  of  her  cognizance  of  morals.  The 
canon  law,  as  here  exhibited,  touched,  directly  or  remotely,  almost 
every  interest  and  every  transaction  of  common  life;  nothing  was 
actually  exempted  from  sacerdotal  interference ;  the  Church  was  not 
merely  the  highest  authority  on  earth,  but  ihe  only  authority,  so  far 
as  she  chose  to  express  and  exert  her  will.  Of  the  power  assumed  by 
the  pontiffs,  as  guardians  of  truth,  the  Decretals  concerning  heretics 
afford  evidence  enough  that  it  extended  to  the  inmost  movements  of 
the  soul,  and  that  it  sustained  itself  by  the  right  to  inflict,  at  discre- 
tion, the  most  extreme  penalties,  affecting  the  posterity  of  the  guilty, 
as  well  as  themsclvfe,  and  including  the  subversion  of  any  govern- 
ment that  opposed  itself  to  the  pajDal  will.  Let  it  be  remembered 
that  this  absolute  despotism  of  the  Church,  in  the  twelfth  century, 
•was  nothing  more  than  the  digested  and  fully  expressed  despotism, 
the  origin  of  which  we  must  look  for  among  the  records  of  almost 
the  earliest  times  of  the  Church. 

But  it  remains  to  adduce  a  few  passages  from  that  eminent  and 
eloquent  champion  of  the  Church,  St.  Bernard,  whose  personal  in- 
fluence, in  his  times,  and  whose  spirited  and  impassioned  writings, 
contributed  more  than  the  influence  or  writings,  perhaps,  of  any 
other  individual  whatever  to  animate,  invigorate,  and  recommend 
the  papal  tyranny  and  the  Romish  superstition. 

One  passage  we  have  already  quoted  :  in  quoting  another  which 
may  properly  follow  it,  we  owe  to  St.  Bernard  the  justice  to  say  that, 
though  included  in  his  works,  its  genuineness  is  questioned  by  his 
learned  editor.  Quamtam  dignitatem  contulit  vobis  (pastoribus) 
Deus,  quanta  est  pvrerogativa  ordinis  vestri!  Prtetulit  vos  Deus  re- 
gibus  et  imperatoribus ;  prretulit  ordinem  vestrum  omnibus  ordini- 
bus,  immo  (ut  altius  loquar)  prretulit  vos  angelis  et  archangelis, 
thronis  ct  dominatiouibus.  Sicut  enirn  non  angelos,  sed  semen  Abra- 
ham apprehendit  ad  faciendam  redcmptionem :  sic  non  angelis,  sed 
hominibus,  solisque  sacerdotibus,  Dominici  corporis  et  sanguinis 
commisit  consecrationem.  Omnes  enim,  sicut  ait  Apostolus,  &o. 
Sed  longe  excellentius  est  offlcium  vestrum,  quod  admirabile  est,  et 
non  solum  in  occulis  vestris,  sed  etiam  angelorum. 

The  following  is  from  his  undisputed  epistles;  and  is  part  of  a  let- 
ter of  affected  surprise  and  remonstrance,  on  learning  that  his  pupil 
had  been  elected  pope:  it  is  addressed.  Ad  totam  Curiam  Romananft, 
quando  elegerunt  Abbatem  S.  Anastasii  in  Papam  Eugenium.        , 

Cluid  igitur  rationis  seu  consilii  habuerit,  defuncto  summo  Ponti- 
fice,  repente  irruere  in  hominem  rusticanum,  latenti  injicere  manus, 
ct  excussa  e  manibus  securi  et  ascia  vel  ligone,  in  palatium  traherc, 

30* 


354  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII. 

levare  In  catliedram,  induere  purpura  et  bysso,  accingere  gladic  ad 
faciendam  vindictam  in  nationibiis,  increpationes  in  populis,  ad  alli^ 
gandos  reges  eorum  in  compedibus,  el  nobileseoruni  in  manicis  fere- 
is?  Sic  non  erat  inter  vos  sapiens  eL  exercitatus,  cui  potius  ista  con- 
venfrent?  Ridiculum  profeclo  videtur,  pannosum  homuncionem  as- 
sumi  ad  praesidendum  Principibus,  ad  imperandum  Episcopis,  ad 
regna  et  imperia  disponenda.  Ridiculum,  an  miraculum?  Plane 
unum  horam.  Non  nego,  non  diffido  posse  fuisse  hoc  eliam  opus 
Dei,  qui  facit  mirabilia  magna  solus:  prresertim  cum  audiam  usque- 

queque  ex  ore  multorum,  quaniam  a  Domino  factum  est  istud 

Ita  inquam,  ita  et  de  nostro  Eugenio  in  beneplacito  Domini  potuit 
contigisse. 

In  the  epistle  which  follows,  to  his  sp'rftual  son,  and  now  his 
**  Father  and  Lord,"  St.  Bernard  says  he  had  waited,  expecting  a 
messenger  who  should  have  conveyed  the  authentic  tidings  of  his 
elevation,  saying — "Joseph,  thy  son,  liveth,and  is  become  lord  of  all 
the  land  of  Egypt."  Congratulations  and  wai-nings  are  added,  and 
the  pious  wish  that  his  son  might  fulfil  the  desires  of  the  Churchy  in 
the  plucking  up  of  spurious  plants.  Ad  hoc  enim  constiiutus  es  super 
gentes  et  regna,  ut  evellas,  et  destruas,  et  cedi%es,  et  planles.  On 
what  principle  the  pontifical  authority  was  to  be  exercised  he  soon 
finds  occasion  to  declare;  Et  ut  planius  quod  loquimur  fiat,  peremp- 
toriam  dare  sententiam  ad  depositionem  Episcoporum,  solius  Roma- 
ni  pontificis  noscitur  esse,  pro  eo  nimirum  quod  etsi  alii  multi  vccati 
sunt  in  partem  solicitudinis,  solus  ipse  plenitudinem  habeat  potesta- 
tis.  Solus  proinde,  si  dicere  audeam,  in  culpa  est  si  culpa  non  feri- 
tur,  quoe  ferienda  est ;  et  eo  impetu,  quo  fuerit  fenenda.  duo  auteni 
impetu,  non  dico  ferienda,  sed  fulminanda  fuerit  prcedicti  Eboracen- 
sis  culpa,  vestrae  conscientise  derelinquo.  Ceterum  quod  factuin  non 
est,  vobis  credimus  reservatum,  ut  Lii  eo  experiatur  Eccksia  Dei,  cui 
ipso  auctore  prreestis,  fervorem  zeli  vestri,  potentiam  brachii  vestri, 
et  animi  sapientiam  :  et  timeat  omnis  populus  sacerdotem  Domini, 
audiens  sapientiam  Dei  esse  in  illo  ad  facieiidum  judicium. 

In  giving  various  advices  to  his  pontifical  son,  St.  Bernard  reminds 
him  that  there  is  "  none  on  earth  iireater  than  himself,"  and  that  one 
must  go  out  of  the  world  to  find  any  thing  that  does  not,  or  that 
ought  not,  to  come  under  his  control.  Ego  enim  reor,  quod  sicut 
illic  Seraphim  et  Cherubim,  et  ceteri  quique  usque  ad  angelos  et 
archangelos,  ordinantur  sub  uno  copite  Den  ;  ita  hie  quoque  sub  uno 
summo  pontifice  primates  vel  patriarchs,  archiepiscopi,  episcopi^ 
presbyteres,  vel  abbates  et  reliqui  in  hunc  mcdum.  And  yet  what 
was  the  actual  character  of  the  seat  and  centre  of  this  heaven-de- 
scended and  spiritual  hierarchy  ?  Hear  St.  Bernard,  writing  to  a 
pope.  Scio  ubi  habitas;  (is  this  an  allusion  to  Rev.  ii.  13?)  increduli 
et  subversores  sunt  tecum.  Lupi,  non  oves  sunt:  talium  tamen  tu 
pastor :  and  ofthe  ecclesiastics  of  the  papal  court;  Sed  nee  tuta  tibi 
tua  bonitas  obsessa  malis,  non  magis  quam  snnitas,  vicino  serpents 
.'.  .  . .  Sed  sive  levent,  sive  gravent,  cui  rectius  imputandum  quam. 
tibi,  qui  taltes  aut  elegisti,  aut  admissisti.  Non  de  omnibus  dico; 
nam  sunt  quos  non  elegisti,  sed  ipsi  tc  To  wit— the  college  of  car- 
dinals* 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII.  355 

St.  Bernard  is  always  labouring  with  the  vast  idea  of  the  Romish 
hierarchy — a  supernatural  scheme,  embracing  all  things,  and  stand- 
ing as  the  means  of  immediate  connexion  between  heaven  and  earth — 
the  chain  between  time  and  eternity.  To  bring  the  reality  up  to  the 
ideal,  was  the  fond  object  of  his  fervent  endeavours.  With  this  view 
he  aimed  at  several  great  purposes,  namely : — to  re-animate  the 
Church  generally,  by  a  new  infusion  of  elevated  and  impassioned 
sentiments ;  and  his  writings  are  indeed  admirably  adapted  to  effect 
such  a  renovation: — to  reform  the  pontifical  character, and  the  papal 
court;  or,  as  we  may  say,  to  cleanse  the  Augean  stable  of  Rome: — 
to  recover  the  Holy  Land  for  Christendom,  as  a  means  at  once  of  re- 
moving the  infidel  power  from  the  vicinity  of  the  Church,  and  of  em- 
bracing the  Greek  Church  within  the  arms  of  that  of  Rome :  and  — 
to  remove  from  the  universal  fold  the  scandal  and  contagion  of  here- 
sy. In  pursuit  of  this  last  object,  St.  Bernard's  conviction  that,  un- 
less secured,  every  other  measure  was  useless,  carried  him  to  fright- 
ful extremities.  While  following  him  on  this  ground,  we  lose  all 
trace  of  the  Christian,  and  see  only  the  fiery,  we  might  add,  the  san- 
guinary zealot.  But  his  penetrating  and  politic  spirit  discerned  clear- 
ly that  there  v/as  no  alternative:  like  Ximenes,  and  many  other  il- 
lustrious Romanists,  he  felt,  in  the  clearest  and  most  forcible  man- 
ner, the  utter  inconsistency  of  any  sort  of  toleration  with  the  first 
principles  of  the  papacy.  To  stand  by  inertly,  while  the  souls  of 
men  were  catching  the  contagion  of  eternal  death,  or  not  to  arrest 
the  infinite  mischief  by  the  most  severe  means,  was  the  ijreatest  ima- 
ginable sin,  on  the  part  of  those  to  whom  the  spiritual  welfire  of 
mankind  was  entrusted.  Twenty  passages  from  St.  Bernard  niighi 
soon  be  adduced  in  which  this  sentiment,  under  different  modifica- 
tions, is  expressed;  and  it  is  an  inseparable  element  of  the  papal 
theory.  The  great  Churchmin  of  the  12th  century  knew  their 
ground,  and  stood  upon  it  boldly :  our  modern  Romanists  have  sur- 
rendered every  thin^,  in  disclaiming  principles  of  intolerance. 

In  addressing  Innocent  II.,  concerning  the  opinions  (heresy)  of 
Peter  Abelard,  St.  Bernard  thus  writes:  Veruni  tu,  o  successor  Pe- 
tri,  judiciabis,  an  debeat  habere  refugium  sedem  Petri,  qui  Petri 
fidem  impugnat.  Tu,  inquam,  amice  Sponsi  providebis,  quomodo 
liberes  sponsam  a  labiis  iniquis,  et  a  lingua  dolosa.  Sed  ut  paulo 
audacius  loquarcum  domino  meo,  attende  etiam  tibi  ipsi,  amantissi- 

me  Pater,  et  gratise  De  qua?  in  te  est Suscitavit  Deus  furorcm 

schismaticorum  in  tuo  tempore,  ut  tuo  opere  contererentur Et 

in  schismate  quidem  jam,  ut  dictum  est,  Dominus  probavit  te,  et  cog- 
novit te.  Sed  ne  quid  desit  coronae  tuee,  in  hsereses  surrexerunt. 
Itaque  ad  consummationem  virtutum,  et  ne  quid  minus  fecisse  inve- 
niamini  a  magnis  Episcopis  antecessoribus  vestris ;  capite  nobis  Pa- 
ter amantissime,  vulpes  quae  demoliuntur  vineam  Domini  donee  par- 
vulse  sunt;  ne,  si  crescant  et  multiplicentur,  quicquid  taUum  per  vos 
non  fuerit  exterminatum,  a  posteris  desperetur.  Gluamquam  non 
jam  parvulae  nee  pauculae,  sed  certe  grandiusculae  et  multae  sint,  nee 
nisi  in  manu  forti  vel  a  vobis  exterminabuntur. 

Much  of  the  same  sort  is  scattered  through  his  letters  and  sermons ; 
the  general  principle  being  this,  that  schismatics  and  heretics,  aftei 


356  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII. 

resisting  argument  and  persuasion,  were,  by  the  aid  of  the  secular 
power,  to  be  pursued  to  death,  in  whatever  way  might  seem  the 
most  sure  and  safe. 

We  may  here  quote,  as  it  occurs,  a  paragraph  from  an  Epistle  of 
Innocent  II.  to  St.  Bernard,  who  quotes  Marcianus :  Licet  laicus, 
christianissimus  tamen  Imperator,  calholicee  fidei  amore  succensus, 
prEedecessori  nostro  sanctissimo  Papae  Johanni  scribens  adversuseos 
qui  sacra  mysteria  profanare  contendunt,  inter  cetera  sic  loquitur, 
dicens ;  Nemo  clericus,  vel  militaris,  vel  alterius  cujuslibet  conditio- 
nis,  de  fide  Christiana  publice  tractare  conetur  in  posterum.  Nam 
injuriam  facit  judicio  reverendissimEe  synodi,  si  quis  semel  judicata 
et  recte  disposita  revolvere,  et  iterum  disputare  contendit:  et  in  con- 
temptores  hujus  legis,  tanquam  in  sacrilegos,  paena  non  deerit,  Igi- 
tur  si  clericus  erit,  qui  publice  tractare  de  religione  ausus  fuerit,  con- 
sortio  clericorum  removebitur. 

Who  is  not  reminded  of  a  passage  in  "his  Majesty's  Declaration," 
prefixed  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles?  It  is  surely  not  noAv  too  soon 
to  blot  from  our  national  formularies  expressions  and  sentiments  pro- 
per enough  to  popery,  but  a  scandal  to  protestantism,  and  insulting 
to  the  feelings  and  practices  of  the  times.  What  is  there  that  may 
be  called  obsolete,  if  the  arrogant  language  of  spiritual  despotism  is 
not  so?  Obstinately  to  adhere  to  what  is  obsolete,  is  ourselves  to 
become  obsolete ;  and  nothing  else  can  follow  but  that  we  should  be 
left  in  the  rear,  and  forgotten. 

Page  260. — "A  full  exliibition  of  the  superstitions  of  the  primitive 
ages." 

While  sending  this  Appendix  to  press,  the  author  has  received  a 
copy  of  the  learned  and  very  important  work  of  Mr.  William  Os- 
burn,  jun.,  on  the  "Doctrinal  Errors  of  the  Apostolical  and  Early 
Fathers" — a  work  than  Avhich  none  could  be  much  more  seasonable, 
or  possess  a  stronger  claim  to  the  attention  of  the  clergy  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  The  author  does  not  take  upon  him  to  recommend 
a  book  which  may  well  be  left  to  recommend  itself;  but  he  avails 
himself  of  the  opportunity  thus  to  mention  it  to  any  of  his  readers 
under  whose  eye  it  might  not  otherwise  fall.  Mr.  Osburn  and  the 
author  have  been  travelling  over  the  same  ground,  and  each  alike 
has  carried  with  him,  not  the  solicitudes  or  the  prepossessions  of  a 
theologian,  but  the  free  notions  of  a  Chric;tian  layman: — they  have 
moreover  reached,  on  several  points,  the  same  general  conclusions, 
and  have  even  happened  to  express  their  opinions,  more  than  once 
or  twice,  in  a  phraseology  remark:ibly  coincident.  Mr.  Osburn  and 
the  author  are  alike  deeply  impressed  with  the  melanchol}^  fact  of 
the  early  and  extensive. corruption  of  Christianity  ;  both  feel  the  ab- 
surdity of  talking  of  the  purity  and  spirituality  of  the  pristine 
Church,  and  the  utter  error  of  dating  that  corruption  from  the  time 
of  Constantine.  Again,  both  would  strongly  urge  the  importance, 
at  the  present  moment,  of  learned  and  ingenuous  inquiries  concern- 
ing those  false  notions  and  superstitions  which,  having  had  their 
birth  in  the  second  century,  or  sooner,  were  permitted  to  live  in  our 
reformed  Churches ;  but  which  now  encumt^r  our  practical  Chris* 


APPENDIX    TO   SECTION    VII.  357 

tianity,  confuse  our  theology,  and  generate  interminable  disagree- 
ments among  the  clergy.  Finally,  Mr.  Osburn  and  the  author  agree 
in  fervently  desiring  the  welfare  and  perpetuity  of  the  Episcopal  and 
Established  Church. 

The  author  finds  however  that  he  would  have  to  except  against, 
or  to  qualify,  some  of  Mr.  Osburn's  representations — not  indeed  as. 
altogether  unfounded,  or  substantially  erroneous;  but  as  being^ 
either  too  strongly  expressed,  or  as  excluding  certain  considerations 
essential  to  an  impartial  apprehension  of  the  subject.  It  is  the  ele- 
venth chapter  only  that  the  author  has  yet  read  (on  Ecclesiastical 
Polity  and  Persons)  and  he  must  profess  to  think  that,  in  this  chap- 
ter the  clerical  authority,  as  asserted  by  the  apostles,  is  set  at  too  low 
a  mark,  or  is  too  vaguely  stated;  while  the  clerical  assumptions  of 
the  Apostolical  Fathers — Clement  and  Ignatius  especially,  are  re- 
prehended with  too  little  regard  to  the  circumstances  of  the  times. 

The  passages  cited  by  Mr.  Osburn  (or  most  of  them)  have  again 
and  again  been  adduced  in  modern  controversy,  and  are  perhaps  as 
familiar  tr)  general  readers  as  any  portion  of  ancient  Christian  litera- 
ture. But  what  probability  has  there  been  that  in  a  controversy 
such  as  the  one  which  has  rent  the  church  on  the  subject  of  clerical 
power,  a  perfectly  fair  use  should  have  been  made  of  them?  appealed 
to  on  the  one  side,  and  the  other  with  a  fixed  purpose,  and  with  ex- 
asperated feelings,  the  evidence  has  meant  any  thing  and  every  thing, 
Mr.  Osburn  has  set  this  evidence  free  from  certain  misrepresenta- 
tions, but  (as  the  author  thinks,)  has  not  well  secured  it  against  per- 
versions of  another  sort. 

The  author  (of  Spiritual  Despotism)  has  not  made  the  use  which 
might  have  been  expected  of  the  epistles  of  the  Apostolical  Fathers,. 
in  exhibiting  the  rise  of  church  tyranny  ;  and  the  sight  of  Mr.  Os- 
burn's book  leads  him  to  explain,  briefly,  the  reasons  of  his  not  hav- 
ing adduced  them  distinctly,  m  the  fifth  Section.  In  the  first  place 
then  he  must  acknowledge  a  degree  of  diffidence  in  relation  to  the 
text  of  certain  parts  of  these  venerable  remains; — a  diffidence  per- 
haps unjustifiable ;  but  yet  such  as  would  make  him  hesitate  in 
Uirowing  the  stress  of  an  argument  upon  particular  phrases.  This 
is  not  the  place  for  critical  discussions,  and  the  author  simply  avows 
the  shade  of  doubt  that  rests  upon  his  mind;  and  he  will  take  occa- 
sion to  express  a  Avish  that  some  modern  scholar,  competent  to  the 
task,  would  employ  his  leisure  in  so  collating  analagous  passages 
(and  there  are  many)  in  the  Epistles  of  the  Apostolical  Fathers,  and 
in  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  as  should  serve  to  render  the  one  as 
well  as  the  rtiher  available,  in  a  satisfactory  way,  on  questions  of 
Christian  antiquity. 

But  this  suspicion,  concerning  the  text  of  these  Fathers,  has  not 
been  the  author's  principle  reason  for  not  adducing  their  epistles  in 
illustration  of  the  rise  of  spiritual  despotism.  The  passages  cited  by 
Mr.  Osburn  are  indeed  (like  almost  every  thing  else  in  early  church 
literature)  liable  to  serious  exceptions;  but,  in  the  first  place,  just- 
tice  demands  (justice  to  these  martyr  bishops)  that  we  should  not 
read  them  in  the  light  of  the  church  history  of  later  times.  The  au- 
thor is  bold  to  say,  that  the  apparent  oflfensiveness  of  the  passages  in 
question  results,  in  a  great  degree,  from  a  tacit  and  involuntary  as* 


358  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII. 

sociation  of  ideas,  connecting  these  same  unguarded  and  too  lofty 
assertions  of  spiritual  authority,  with  the  preposterous  sacerdotal 
arrogance  of  the  bishops  of  the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  and  of  the 
pontiffs  of  the  tenth  and  twelfth.  Entirely  disjoined  from  this  men- 
tal assimilation,  the  language  of  Ignatius  is  at  once  lowered  several 
degrees  in  its  import,  and  is  fairly  liable  only  to  a  moderate  repre- 
hension. Throughout  our  researches  on  the  field  of  Christian  an- 
tiquity, this  same  difficulty  o{  setting  offfvom  the  opinions  and  senti- 
ments of  the  men  of  each  age,  the  ill  comment  or  the  abuse  which 
the  history  of  the  following  times  has,  in  our  minds  connected  there- 
with, besets  us.  The  author  must  frankly  confess  that  it  has  been 
more  than  he  has  been  able  always,  or  often  to  effect,  to  read  the 
Fathers  with  the  feeling,  and  in  the  light  of  a  contemporary,  and  as 
if  he  knew  nothing  of  the  history  of  the  age  next  following  that  of 
each  writer. 

Furthermore,  the  author  can  by  no  means  go  so  far  as  some  have 
done,  or  so  fir  as  Mr.  Osburn  goes,  in  attributing  the  reprehensible 
language  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers  to  sacerdotal  ambition.  That 
this  feehng  entered  into  their  minds  we  must  not  deny  ;  but  yet 
should  fully  consider  the  circumstances  of  the  times  before  judg- 
ment is  given  against  them.  In  what  position  then  did  these  pas- 
tors stand  ?  They  had  received  their  appointment  from  the  very 
hands  of  the  apostles,  or  the  companions  of  the  apostles.  There 
was  no  room  for  them  to  be  diffident  of  their  own  personal  author- 
ity. To  maintain  this  authority,  and  to  exert  it  (in  the  spirit,  and 
Avith  the  humility  of  their  predecessors)  was  not  merely  lawful,  but 
was  their  solemn  duty.  At  the  same  time,  in  many  of  the  Grecian 
cities,  where  republican  sentiments  were  rife,  the  disposition  to  resist 
constituted  authorities  was  vehement.  The  Churches  moreover, 
were  set  upon  by  itinerant  fanatics  of  every  stamp,  Jewish  zealots, 
Platonic  dreamers.  Gnostics,  and  philosophists,  eastern  and  western, 
and  the  people  were  but  too  prone  to  give  ear  to  these  pestilent  dis- 
turbers, and  to  turn  away  from  those  who  insisted  upon  the  plain 
and  practical  principles  of  the  Gospel.  The  times  predicted  by  St. 
Paul  had  actually  come,  when  men  would  no  longer  endure  sound 
doctrine  ;  but  would  court  those  who  would  tickle  their  ears  with  mis- 
chievous novelties.  How  should  these  disorders  be  composed,  or  how 
this  tide  be  rolled  bnck  ?  The  apostolic  pastors  must  have  felt  that 
every  thing  was  in  jeopardy,  and  the  Gospel  itself  so  far  as  human 
means  were  involved,  not  unlikely  to  be  overpowered  and  lost. 

In  this  extremity,  for  such  it  must  have  seemed  to  them,  these  pas- 
tors, no  longer  furnished,  or  not  ordinarily  so,  with  the  weapons  of 
miraculous  power,  leaned  upon  authority,  rather  than  upon  the 
direct  reasons  and  motives  with  which  the  apostolic  writings  would 
have  supplied  them.  It  was  not  strange  that  they  did  "so;  they 
could  not  foresee  that  they  were  by  this  means  laying  the  first  stones 
of  the  papal  pandemonium.  The  terms  in  which  they  affirmed  their 
own  powers,  and  urged  the  people  to  implicit  submission,  though 
not  to  be  altogether  defended,  may  fairly  be  exempt  from  severe 
blame.  Our  Lord  in  addressing  his  ministers  says — "  Verily  I  say 
unto  you  whosoever  receiveth  you,  receiveth  me ;  and  he  that  re*' 


APPENDIX    TO    SECTION  VII.  359 

ceiveth  me,  receiveth  him  that  sent  mc" — and  tlie  converse.  St. 
Paul  had  declared  that  the  Church  was  "built  on  the  foundation  of 
the  apostles  and  prophets,"  &c. — a  foundation  that  was  to  have  a 
superstructure.  Now  these  apostolic  pastors  rested  on  the  founda- 
tion as  the  very  next  layer  of  the  building  ;  and  they  were  the  men 
next  to  those  to  whom  the  highest  powers  had  been  assigned  by  the 
highest  authority :  they  were  sent  by  those  whom  the  Lord  had  sent, 
they  were  those  upon  whom  hands  hud  been  laid,  in  obedience  to 
St.  Paul's  instructions — "  What  thou  hast  received  commit  to  faith- 
ful men,  who  shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also."  In  what  light  then 
must  tbey  have  regarded  their  own  position,  and  their  cause,  as  op- 
posed to  the  pretensions  and  the  seditious  endeavours  of  the  false 
teachers?  It  is  easy  to  see  that  they  must  have  felt  themselves 
fully  justified  in  the  endeavour  to  bring  back  the  people  to  obedience 
to  rightful  authority.  Every  thing  was  at  stake — themselves  van- 
quished by  the  virulent  agitators,  and  what  was  likely  but  that  the 
truth  of  God  should  have  fallen  with  them? 

St.  Paul,  indeed,  rejoiced  in  the  preaching  of  Christ,  even  by  the 
contentious  ;  but  St.  Paul  enjoyed  the  serenity  and  the  assurance 
proper  to  an  inspired  and  a  miraculously  endowed  person.  Ignatius 
on  his  way  to  martyrdom,  had  no  such  tranquillity  ;  and  he  felt  that 
he  was  leaving  the  field  open  to  wolves  and  foxes.  He  was  racked 
by  a  genuine  anxiety  for  the  fate  of  the  Churches.  Say,  that  his  no- 
tions of  sacerdotal  power  were  exaggerated,  and  say,  too,  that  the 
language  he  employed  v/as  of  a  kind  which  his  less  worthy  and 
more  ambitious  successors  would  be  sure  to  abuse.  Let  all  this  be 
granted,  and  yet  we  dare  not  hale  the  martyr  to  the  tribunal  of  mo- 
dern notions,  as  the  guilty  originator  of  spiritual  despotism. 

The  author  well  knows  he  might  have  made  a  great  show  in  the 
section  on  the  First  Steps  of  Spiritual  Despotism,  with  the  epistles 
of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp  ;  but  he  has  refrained  from  doing  so  ;  and 
must  leave  it  to  his  intelligent  and  competent  readers  to  decide  whe- 
ther he  has  herein  betrayed  and  impoverished  his  argument,  or  only 
shown  a  deserved  indulgence  to  the  companions  of  the  apostles,  and 
the  martyr-bishops  of  the  first  age. 

The  author  may  take  this  opportunity  to  state  why  he  has  not  ad- 
duced a  specimen  of  the  many  striking  instances  of  sacerdotal  arro- 
gance that  might  be  gathered  from  the  apocryphal  writings  of  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries.  The  Apostolic  Constitutions  he  has, 
indeed,  referred  to  reservedly  ;  but  has  not  brought  forward  the 
Canon''  of  the  Apostles,  the  Recognitions  of  Clement,  or  the  Clemen- 
tine Homilies.  It  is  not  that  these  compositions  do  not  contain  an 
abundance  of  available  evidence  ;  but  to  make  use  of  it  safely  is  an 
affair  of  no  small  difficulty.  Critical  and  historical  inquiries  of  the 
most  intricate  sort,  ought  to  precede  any  such  appeal  to  them  ;  and 
the  author  is  far  from  professing  himself  master  of  this  branch  of 
learning.  Moreover  he  is  of  opinion  that  these  suspicious  works 
may  be  appf  aled  to  with  more  certainty  in  relation  to  the  theological 
opinions  and  superstitious  notions  and  practices  of  the  times  when 
they  were  composed,  than  in  reference  to  questions  of  church  polity, 
and  the  prei-ogatives  of  the  clergy ;   inasmuch  as  these  were  the 


360  APPENDIX    TO    SECTION    VII, 

«ery  points  most  likely  to  have  been  distinctly  kept  in  view  by  th« 
wriicis,  as  tlie  main,  though  unavowed,  objects  of  their  spurious 
labours.  In  following,  therefore,  the  progress  of  superstition,  these 
apocryphal  remains  may  lend  an  aid,  which  we  do  not  seek  for  from 
them  in  stating  the  rise  of  spiritual  despotism.  The  author, 
moreover,  begs  tlie  reader  to  remember  that  not  a  few  fads  which 
ought  to  have  found  a  place  in  the  present  volume,  had  it  stood  alone, 
are  well  omitted  in  a  work  which  is  one  of  a  series.  Spiritual  Des- 
potism and  Superstition  are,  indeed,  intimately  connected,  and  it 
may  be  doubted  which  of  the  two  should  be  regarded  as  the  leading 
theme.  Perhaps  the  claims  of  the  two  are  evenly  balanced :  but  both 
have  an  immediate  and  highly  important  bearing  upon  the  religious 
movements  of  our  own  times: — the  first  (chiefly)  because  a  mis- 
placed jealousy  of  clerical  power  is  tending  to  the  further  depression 
of  an  influence  which  needs  rather  to  be  restored  : — and  the  second 
(chiefly)  because  our  modern  Christianity  is,  in  more  modes  than 
one,  and  among  all  p.irties,  affected  by  those  perversions  and  cor- 
I'uptions  which  we  are  compelled  to  assign  to  the  first  century.  It 
may  boldly  be  afiirmed  that  popery  will  not  be  refuted,  nor  the  Re- 
formation consummated,  until  the  superstitions  of  the  martyr  Church 
are  thoroughly  explored,  and  popularly  understood.  Every  writer 
overrates  the  importance  of  the  particular  theme  he  undertakes. 
This  natural  and  common  prejudice  allowed  for,  the  author  Avill  yet 
assert  the  high  praciicAl  significance  of  the  line  of  inquiry  in  which 
he  is  now  eng  iged,  and  especially  in  reference  to  the  present  posi- 
tion of  the  Established  Church.  Happy  will  he  be  to  find  that,  on 
the  path  he  pursues — a  path  not  strewed  with  roses,  he  has  compa- 
nions and  competitors.  The  work  now  to  be  done  needs  every  ad- 
vantage of  co-operation,  and  of  generous  rivalry  ;  yes,  and  of  Chris- 
tian and  mannerly  opposition.  The  author  must  deem  every  man  a 
brother  who  loves  Christianity,  and  who  labours  to  promote  it.  In- 
terests vastly  surmounting  all  personal  considerations  are  now  at 
stake  ;  and  whoever  presumes  to  put  a  hand  to  the  great  movements 
of  the  day,  should  come  forward  thoroughly  prepared  to  count  all 
things  as  dross  which  have  reference  simpl)^  to  himself.  To  be 
known,  or  to  be  unknown,  on  the  theatre  of  literary  emulation,  of 
what  importance  is  it  ?  To  have  been  inconsiderately  lauded,  or  to 
have  been  illiberally  contemned,  by  this  journal,  or  by  that,  of  what 
significance  ?  Assuredly  the  motives  which  would  lay  a  man  open, 
very  sensiiively,  to  influences  of  this  sort,  are  of  a  kind  that  must 
fail  to  bear  him  through  the  oppressive  labours  of  remote  historical 
research.  Well  would  it  be  if  both  writers  and  critics  could  more 
const-i.tUly  bear  in  mind  the  plain  but  momentous  considerations  of 
the  brevity  and  precariousntss  of  the  season  through  which,  indivi- 
dually, our  opportunity  of  doing  any  good  extends,  the  account  to  be 
rendered  of  our  personal  agency,  and  the  infinite  consequences,  to 
our  fellows,  that  attach  often  to  the  part  we  take  in  religious  revolu- 
tions. If  the  author,  in  his  first  section,  has  appealed  from  the  tribu- 
nal of  our  periodic  literature,  to  the  better  judgment  of  the  public,  he 
has  done  so  under  the  serious  and  strong  impression  that,  from  the 
peculiar  circumstances  attending  this  species  of  writing,  it  hardly 


APPENDIX   TO   SECTION   VIII.  361 

ever,  if  at  all,  comes  under  the  control  of  those  high  motives,  apart 
from  which  great  religious  controversies  should  never  be  touched. 

To  revert  for  a  moment  to  the  point  from  which  he  set  out,  the  au- 
thor must  further  anticipate  the  exceptions  of  those  who  may  think 
that  certain  flaming  affirmations  of  the  dignity  of  the  Christian 
Priesthood,  made  by  the  florid  orators  of  the  fourth  century,  should 
have  filled  a  prominent  place  in  the  present  volume  :  for  instance, 
the  enormities  of  spiritual  inflation  that  abound  in  Chrysostom's 
Treatise  on  the  Priesthood.  Earth  trembles  under  this  churchman's 
magniloquence  ;  but  the  real  value  of  it,  in  relation  to  our  immediate 
subject,  entirely  turns  upon  the  decision  of  a  preliminary  question, 
namely,  that  concerning  the  sacraments,  or  "  mysteries  of  the 
Church."  If  Chrysostom's  doctrine,  on  these  points,  be  jtistifiable 
and  sound,  the  pretensions  he  advances,  and  the  prerogatives  and 
dignities  he  challenges,  are  justifiable  also.  If  popery  be  Christianity, 
Chrysostom  spoke  only  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness  when  he 
sought  to  rear  the  priest  to  the  third  heavens.  The  treatise  we  have 
mentioned  is  liable  to  the  charge  of  promoting  sjDiritual  despotism 
only  when  the  doctrine  it  assumes  has  been  disproved.  The  same 
must  be  said  of  a  hundred  pages  of  the  ecclesiastical  rhetoric  of  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries, 


APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  VIII. 

Page  263. — "  Sed  et  ut  multa  alia  ille  (Lutherus)  reliquit,  ita 
etiam  hoc  negotium  posteris  tradidit,  ut  quos  reddiderat  fontes,  his 
uti  melius  discerent,  ipsamque  doctrinum,  ex  illis  fontibus  haustam, 
ab  omnibus  humanornm  opinionum  commentis  magis  magisque  libe- 
rarent.  Gluod  non  ab  ipso  Luthero  confectum  esse  nemo  mirabitur; 
quanquam  in  illo  tale  ingenium  fuit,  ut,  nisi  aliorum  laborum  gravis- 
simorum  multitudo  virum  ab  eo  otio,  quod  antiquarum  hterarum  stu- 
diura  quum  maxime  exposcit,  avocasset  ;  vera  librorum  N.  T.  inter- 
pretatione  superior  omnibus  aequalibus  futurus  fuisse  videatur  :  sed 
post  tria  fere  secula,  post  tantosque  virorum  summorum  labores, 
nondum  certis  legibus  compositum  esse  artem  interpretandi  N.  T.  id 
tam  mirum  videri  debet  omnibus,  ut,  nisi  illius  artis  difficultates,  et 
vitiorum,  quibus  ea  etiamnum  laborat,  causas  norint,  vix  credituri 
sint."     Titmann. 

What  is  true  of  the  system  of  interpretation,  and  the  theology  of 
Luther  and  his  illustrious  companions,  is  true  of  his  ecclesiastical 
notions,  and  of  theirs.  Every  thing  we  inherit  from  these  great  men 
demands  to  be  reconsidered. 

Page  275, — "  A  church-and-state  system."  Even  if  his  proper 
subject,  and  his  space,  might  admit  it,  the  author  would  be  reluctant 

31 


362  APPENDIX   TO    SECTION   VIII. 

to  advance  any  thing  upon  the  abstract  question  of  a  church-and- 
state  polity  ;  and  especially  for  this  reason,  that  speculative  argu- 
ments of  this  sort  tend  to  distract  the  public  mind  from  those  more 
important  and  urgent  questions  that  relate  to  the  renovation  and  im- 
provement of  our  ACTUAL  ESTABLISHMENT.  We  are  not  about  (it 
may  be  ho])ed)  to  melt  down  the  entire  mass  of  our  institutions,  and 
to  cast  them  anew  ;  but  to  correct  and  amend,  to  purify  and  to  in- 
vigorate, what  we  possess.  Theories  which  assume  nothing  as  ex- 
isting in  fact,  are  properly  entertained,  cither  in  new  countries,  where 
the  rude  elements  of  society  have  to  be  combined  ;  or  in  old  coun- 
tries, where  every  thing  that  exists  is  too  desperately  corrupt  to  ad- 
mit of  amendment.  England,  we  presume,  is  as  remote  from  the  one 
of  these  conditions,  as  it  is  from  the  other. 

Page  278. — Every  man  of  sense  and  right  feeling,  who  cares  for 
the  Established  Church,  and  desires  its  welfare,  must  be  pei^iCtrated 
Avith  sorrow  and  humiliation  in  hearing  the  insufferable  languoge  and 
doctrines  of  the  times  of  Charles  II.  repeated,  up  to  the  present  hour, 
by  certain  of  the  clergy.     It  is  more  than  can  well  be  expected  from 
human  nature  that  the  Dissenters  should  listen  to  this  outrageous 
bigotry  in  magnanimous  silence.     On  the  contrary,  it  exasperates, 
not  merely  the  intemperate  and  factious,  but  the  moderate  and  re- 
spectable.    Does  the  Church  then  think  herself  so  strong  that  she 
may,  in  safety,  insult  and  revile  some  millions  of  the  people  ;  and  not 
the  least  intelligent  or  powerful  portion  of  them  ?   This  is  an  illusion 
not  unlikely  to  be  dissipated.     But  where  is  the  Christian  temper  of 
a  Church  that  deals  in,  or  that  authenticates  calumnies  and  curses  ? 
or  where  is  episcopal  authority,  that  does  not  visit  the  offenders  with 
grave  and  public  rebukes?   Clergymen  may  know  what  will  suit  the 
taste  and  temper  of  their  order;  but   they  do  not  always  know^  (or 
appear  to  know)  the  taste,  temper,  and  tacit  sentiments  of  the  laity. 
At  the  present  moment  it  is  not  a  few  of  the  laity  of  England  whose 
good-will  and  active  friendship  it  would  be  wise  to  conciliate : — not 
a  fev/  there  are,  well  informed,  even  in  matters  of  religion,  temperate 
in  opinion,  well  inclined  to  sustain  our  Ecclesiastical  Constitutions  ; 
some  of  them,  perhaps,  possessed  of  influence  over  the  public  mind, 
and  ready  to  employ  this  influence,  wdiether  more  or  less  extensive, 
for  the  support  of  the  Church :  but  it  is  expected  from  them  that,  in 
doing  so,  they  should  join  hands  with  Sacheverels,  or  with  some  who 
had  better  have  lived  in  the  twelfth  century  than  have  disgraced  the 
nineteenth  ?     There  is  a  singular  want  of  tact  and  discretion  on  the 
part  of  those  who,  by  giving  countenance  to  zealots,  fix  a  deep  dis- 
gust in  the  minds  of  the  intelligent  laity.    It  is  not  a  day  too  soon  for 
the  Established  Church  to  put  away  from  herself  a  mode  of  behaviour 
which  she  cannot  maintain,  and  hold  at  the  same  time  the  hearts  and 
reverence  of  the  better  portion  of  the  English  people. 


363 


APPENDIX  TO  SECTION  IX. 

Page  292. — The  author  believes  he  shall  not  go  beyond  the  limits 
of  his  actual  knowledge  of  the  state  of  opinion  among  the  dissenting 
clergy,  in  affirming  that,  in  reference  to  questions  of  ecclesiastical 
polity,  the  body  is  by  no  means  accordant;  for  while  the  majority 
(perhaps)  is  actively  and  warmly  attached  to  extreme  principles, 
and  is  thoroughly  democratic  and  congregational  (democratic  in  ec- 
clesiastical affairs)  there  is  a  considerable  and  a  highly  respectable 
party  among  whom  the  suspicion  has  been  long  growing  that  their 
polity  is  unsound  in  principle,  and  inexpedient  in  fact.  This  would 
be  the  very  moment  for  these  intelligent  men  ingenuously  to  avow 
their  discontents.  Dissent  would  not  be  weakened  but  strengthened 
by  their  doing  so  : — or  what  is  far  better,  a  path  would  be  cleared  of 
conference  and  conciliation,  which  might  open  at  length  upon  a  fair 
field  of  Christian  peace.  May  Heaven  in  its  infinite  goodness  so 
lead  forward  the  minds  of  the  Avise  and  sincere  among  us,  as  shall 
issue  in  thwarting  the  designs  of  the  factions,  in  healing  every  divi- 
sion among  those  who  love  the  same  Lord,  and  in  securing  the  .per^ 
manent  religious  prosperity  of  the  empire  I 


THE    END, 


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